Alibaba Group has launched a new version of its AI assistant app that will be powered by its own flagship Qwen AI reasoning model.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. unveiled a new version of its AI assistant mobile app that incorporates its latest in-house model, another in a series of product rollouts intended to help the company keep pace with Chinese artificial intelligence rivals.

The launch comes as its latest effort to gain an edge amid growing competition in AI application front, further intensified by the emergence of DeepSeek.

The new launch is powered by the company’s Qwen AI reasoning model, which the company is pushing to take on OpenAI and its homegrown ( and controversial) rival, DeepSeek. This LLM is also being used by Chinese startup, Manus, for what is being claimed to be “a completely autonomous agent”.

Alibaba Group unveiled a new version of its AI assistant, as the race to offer the top generative AI chatbot heats up in China. U.S.-listed Alibaba stock was slightly lower in early trading. The update to Alibaba's Quark AI assistant is the first version to be fully powered by Alibaba's custom artificial intelligence models.