Alibaba's Qwen Now Lets You Order Food and Book Trips With Simple Voice Commands
Alibaba's AI Assistant Gets Smarter: Voice Commands Now Handle Shopping and Travel
Imagine ordering your favorite bubble tea or booking a weekend getaway just by speaking to your phone. That future arrived today as Alibaba unveiled major upgrades to its Qwen app, transforming it into what may be the most practical AI assistant yet.
Seamless Shopping Through Speech
At Tuesday's launch event, Wu Jia from Qwen's Consumer Business Group demonstrated something remarkable. Speaking casually into his phone - "Order 40 Bawang Cha Ji drinks for me" - he watched as the AI processed the request instantly. Within seconds, the system had selected the items on Taobao Flash Sales and completed payment without ever leaving the Qwen app.
"This isn't just voice recognition," Wu explained. "Qwen understands context, makes decisions about where to purchase items best suited to your preferences, and handles all the steps automatically."
The Tech Behind the Convenience
The breakthrough comes from significant improvements in three key areas:
- Real-time tool building allows Qwen to create temporary interfaces as needed
- Full-modal understanding helps interpret various types of information simultaneously
- Advanced context processing enables handling complex multi-step requests
Beyond Shopping: A Truly Helpful Assistant
The upgrades extend far beyond retail therapy. Qwen now connects with:
- Over 50 government services (visa applications, housing funds)
- Travel platforms Fliggy and AutoNavi for trip planning
- Restaurant reservation systems that can make actual phone calls The app's new "Task Assistant" feature - currently in limited testing - shows particularly impressive human-like planning abilities.
While other tech giants race to build conversational AIs, Alibaba appears focused on creating something genuinely useful for everyday life. As Wu put it: "We're not chasing science fiction - we're solving real problems people face every day."
Key Points:
- Qwen now integrates deeply with Alibaba's ecosystem including Taobao and Alipay
- Over 400 new AI functions added in this update
- Can handle complex tasks like ordering specific quantities of items
- Expanding into travel planning and government services
- "Task Assistant" feature shows advanced planning capabilities
