China is at the forefront of the agentic commerce competition as Alibaba, Meituan, and JD.com implement AI shopping agents on a large scale.

      **Summary**: China's major technology firms are replacing the conventional e-commerce search bar with AI agents capable of locating, comparing, and purchasing products through natural dialogue. Alibaba's Qwen assistant, now incorporated with Taobao's four-billion-item catalog, boasts 300 million monthly active users, while Alipay saw 120 million AI-agent transactions in a single week in February. Companies like Meituan, JD.com, ByteDance, and Tencent are also rapidly deploying similar functionalities.

      For many years, shopping online in China involved entering keywords into a search bar and endlessly scrolling through listings. That process is now being transformed. Recently, Alibaba Group has integrated its Qwen AI assistant with Taobao, allowing users to access a catalog of over four billion products. Shoppers can now articulate their desires in simple terms, letting the AI refine selections based on budget, brand, or occasion and finalize purchases directly in the chat. This represents the most extensive implementation of agentic commerce, where AI agents carry out transactions on behalf of users, attempted by a major platform.

      Alibaba isn't alone in this endeavor. In January, Meituan introduced a virtual AI companion in its app to assist users in finding restaurants and entertainment. JD.com unveiled its own AI shopping assistant, Jingyan, in 2023 and quickly attracted over 50 million users. ByteDance's Doubao AI chatbot was enhanced in December to independently perform tasks like ticket bookings via Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. Additionally, Tencent is integrating AI agent functionalities into WeChat, which has 1.3 billion monthly active users. The approximately 975 million online shoppers in China are, whether consciously or not, participating in a nationwide initiative to replace the traditional search bar with conversational engagement.

      **The scale of the transformation**

      The statistics indicate that this development transcends mere feature enhancements. By early 2026, Qwen had achieved 300 million monthly active users across Alibaba's consumer platforms, with around 140 million inaugural AI shopping sessions recorded just during the Chinese New Year campaign. Meanwhile, Alipay, the payment sector of Alibaba's Ant Group, facilitated 120 million AI-agent transactions in one week of February, consisting of purchases made through a chatbot without users needing to leave the conversation. This is the first time any AI-based payment product has achieved such a volume.

      On the merchant side, Tmall has enhanced its Business Advisor tool with AI capabilities, providing each seller on the platform with a dedicated team of AI agents available around the clock. These agents manage various operational functions, including store analytics, advertising, content creation, customer service, and post-sale support. The AI customer service tool Dianxiaomi, already piloted with 200,000 merchants, has reportedly improved conversion rates by 30%.

      **Why China is advancing faster**

      The underlying factor behind the rapid movement of China’s tech companies in agentic commerce compared to their Western counterparts is structural. Chinese super-apps like Taobao, WeChat, Meituan, and Douyin seamlessly integrate discovery, communication, payment, and fulfillment within a single platform. When an AI agent on Alibaba's platform identifies a product, compares it among sellers, conducts virtual try-ons, tracks a 30-day price history, and places an order, the entire process remains within the ecosystem. The transaction is completed through Alipay, with the agent withdrawing only for the final user confirmation.

      In contrast, the Western approach often involves fragmentation. Integrations like ChatGPT’s shopping capabilities with Shopify and Amazon’s Rufus assistant primarily yield search-style results; the purchasing process occurs on a different app or website, with payment, delivery, and returns managed through separate systems. This division in Western e-commerce architecture enables AI agents to effectively recommend products but hampers their ability to complete the entire transaction process without redirecting users to another platform.

      **Impact on businesses**

      The implications for businesses may be as substantial as those for consumers. If AI agents are playing significant roles in purchase decisions, companies must adapt to be favored by algorithms rather than solely attracting human attention. A new infrastructure layer is arising to assist brands in linking their catalogs to AI platforms, managing real-time pricing and availability, and monitoring product performance in conversational contexts as opposed to search-based discovery.

      Some retailers have begun to report traffic reductions of up to 30% as consumers transition from traditional search engines to queries led by AI agents. McKinsey anticipates that agentic transactions could influence as much as $5 trillion in global sales by 2030. This transition not only alters shopping methods but also redefines what it means for a product to be discoverable. The focus on search engine optimization, which has governed online retail for two decades, may be shifting towards agent optimization, the practice of making products understandable to AI systems rather than to human consumers.

      **Challenges ahead**

      Despite these advances, the search bar is not yet obsolete. Agentic commerce is still in its developmental phase, and the technology faces notable limitations. AI agents