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Ben Jiang

Iris Deng

China’s technology titans from Alibaba Group Holding to Tencent Holdings are locked in a race to decide who will own the digital front door of the future, as they pour billions of dollars into generative artificial intelligence, betting that whoever builds the most seamless AI-powered gateway will influence how the country’s 1.4 billion people shop, work, and communicate.
Over the past decades, the gateway to the internet has shifted form – from the early web portals to the search engine era, and eventually to the “super apps” that currently dominate Chinese online life.
Now, the industry is betting on a new evolution: the AI agent.
The goal is to move away from the manual “click-and-scroll” era towards a more intuitive, conversational experience.
Chinese tech companies are tapping AI’s ability to understand and generate natural language and synthesise information, thereby equipping conventional online services – search engines or shopping platforms – to turn once rigid online roaming for information into a more smooth conversational experience, said Zhang Yi, founder and chief analyst at internet consultancy iiMedia.
“A streamlined process to have AI interpret user intents, synthesising information, recommending products and placing orders is more efficient” than the traditional way of online shopping that requires a user to go through the process manually, Zhang said.
Major Chinese e-commerce companies, including Alibaba and JD.com, have both introduced AI shopping assistants to their online shopping platforms, allowing users to interact with the chatbots, find and compare products, and make purchases. This represents a shift away from keyword-based e-commerce searches to what analysts call a “conversational shopping” experience.
Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
While the integration of agentic AI with e-commerce services like Alibaba’s Taobao and JD.com is reshaping shopping, the promise of an agent within Tencent’s WeChat, the ubiquitous do-everything app for users in China, bears the potential to make the app the gateway for all aspects of everyday life.
Tencent previously confirmed that it was working on an agent that leveraged the diverse WeChat ecosystem of mini-programs, content, commerce, social and payments. If successful, the agent is expected to execute tasks for users in a universe of services where they can chat, shop, hail a taxi and book a flight, all within the super app.

“WeChat’s network effects are stronger than Taobao’s,” said Ivan Su, senior equity analyst at Morningstar. “WeChat is positioned to solidify its dominance in the AI era” because the super app’s billion-user network, mini-program ecosystem and merchant infrastructure would all benefit from an AI integration that made them more useful and hard to replace.
WeChat is already integrated with Tencent’s proprietary Hy model in functions including search, which has seen query volume jump 25 per cent in the first quarter mainly driven by AI-powered ranking. Amid the recent OpenClaw frenzy, Tencent also made WeChat one of the control interfaces for users to manage their AI agents such as WorkBuddy and QClaw, and command them to perform tasks.
The stakes are reflected in significant capital expenditures.
On its quarterly earnings call last week, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming said the company was likely to “overshoot” the original capital-expenditure target of 380 billion yuan (US$56 billion), citing the massive investment required for the buildout of AI data centres.
Tencent last week also further pledged “a substantial increase” in 2026 capex, especially in the second half, as more China-designed AI chips became available, according to its chief strategy officer James Mitchell.
Goldman Sachs also expected that 2026 could be the pivotal year in the fight for consumer-facing AI super entry points, the investment bank said in a January research note.
Consultancy Gartner estimates that China’s generative AI spending is projected to grow 48.8 per cent in 2026, far outpacing the global average of 37.9 per cent, with 94 per cent of Chinese companies planning to increase investment in the area.

Despite the rosy expectations, the path ahead is littered with technical and economic hurdles.
Chelsey Tam, senior equity analyst at financial consultancy Morningstar, did not expect AI-enhanced apps to become the primary hub overnight.
Users needed to “become AI native, and understand the strengths and weaknesses of AI”, Tam said.
Unless AI weaknesses such as hallucinations – the tendency to generate inaccurate or misleading responses – could be reduced meaningfully, Tam said, users may hesitate to trust AI with important tasks.
In spite of the caution, the momentum in China is undeniable.
An agent within WeChat “will be coming, but we need to figure out the best way of presenting these and how to allow mini-program owners to actively engage with this”, Tencent president Martin Lau Chi-ping said on Wednesday.
No one can afford to be losing the race: only those players that secure AI-driven internet gateways were likely to be in a stronger competitive position in the future, iiMedia’s Zhang said.


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The integration of agentic AI with sites like Taobao and JD.com is reshaping shopping, but the bigger promise is an agent within WeChat


The integration of agentic AI with sites like Taobao and JD.com is reshaping shopping, but the bigger promise is an agent within WeChat.


Chinese tech giants, from Alibaba to Tencent, race to dominate AI-powered digital gateways

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The integration of agentic AI with sites like Taobao and JD.com is reshaping shopping, but the bigger promise is an agent within WeChat

The integration of agentic AI with sites like Taobao and JD.com is reshaping shopping, but the bigger promise is an agent within WeChat