The AI that "understands what you need" is here! People's Daily comments on Alibaba Qianwen's public service capabilities

On the second day of the Chinese New Year in 2026, People’s Daily published an in-depth report titled “From ‘You Might Like’ to ‘Understanding Your Needs’: AI Accelerates ‘Embedding’ into Daily Life,” focusing on how the new generation of AI assistants, represented by Alibaba Qianwen, are transitioning from “recommendation-based services” to “proactive understanding,” truly integrating into the daily routines of hundreds of millions of Chinese people in high-frequency scenarios such as ticket booking, dining, government services, and learning support. The report points out that generative AI is becoming a key engine driving the digital and intelligent transformation of the economy and society, and companies with strong industry foundations and rich fulfillment ecosystems will hold an advantage in the global large-model competition.

Below is the original report:

From ‘You Might Like’ to ‘Understanding Your Needs’: AI Accelerates ‘Embedding’ into Daily Life

People’s Daily Staff Reporter Gu Yekai

“Help me book round-trip tickets from Nanjing to Sanya for the Spring Festival holiday, two adults and one child, stay for 4 days, departure on February 18 or 19.” Ms. Sun from Nanjing, Jiangsu, a travel enthusiast, used to spend a lot of time booking tickets before traveling, often struggling to find the most cost-effective platform. This year, she simply stated her needs, and Alibaba Qianwen’s app intelligently analyzed the Spring Festival ticket price trends and provided several flight options.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, AI ordering methods like “ordering a milk tea with one sentence” attracted many consumers to try. On February 6, in just nine hours, Qianwen received 10 million orders. All these orders were placed by consumers through a single command. Subsequently, AI helped complete the entire process from decision-making and transaction payment to fulfillment services.

“With technological support, platforms are no longer just ‘recommendations you might like,’ but ‘understanding your needs,’” said Xu Fei, Director of the Taitian Group Research Center. In scenarios such as learning, work, and public services, the new generation of AI assistants is also demonstrating impressive capabilities. They can explain knowledge points step-by-step like teachers, allowing students to interrupt and ask questions at any time; they can accurately recognize nearly a hundred different formats of electronic invoices, extract key information, and generate clear, structured tables. Recently, Mr. Lin from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, experienced a new feature on Qianwen: “I asked ‘How to get a passport with a Hangzhou household registration,’ and it told me what I needed to prepare, then directly guided me to the application portal.” Currently, Qianwen leverages Alipay’s government service capabilities to enable “one-sentence queries” for 50 public service items, including visas, household registration, and housing provident fund.

Wu Jiajia, President of Alibaba’s Intelligent Information Business Group, introduced that Qianwen has achieved high success rates in application development, office work, learning support, consulting, and research tasks. The AI assistant’s capabilities for complex tasks like “building a website with one sentence” and “generating a report with one sentence” have freed users from tedious and repetitive chores.

Generative AI is accelerating its integration into daily life and production fields, becoming a vital engine for promoting the digital and intelligent transformation of the economy and society. By December 2025, China’s user base for generative AI reached 602 million, a 141.7% increase from the end of 2024. Qianwen’s monthly active users on the consumer side exceeded 100 million, making it one of the fastest-growing native AI applications worldwide. “AI development has entered the stage of real-world application. In future global large-model development, companies with deep industry roots and rich fulfillment ecosystems will hold a competitive advantage,” said Hong Yong, Associate Research Fellow at the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute.

Behind the deepening and practical application of intelligent services is the continuous strengthening of China’s AI development foundation. Taking Alibaba as an example, it has increased R&D investment over the past decade. Currently, the number of derivative models based on Qianwen has exceeded 200,000, with over 1 billion downloads.

Enabling AI to have the potential to “root in reality and grow upward,” by embedding cutting-edge technology into everyday life filled with “fireworks,” is a key goal. Zheng Sishou, head of the Qianwen AI assistant product, stated that the product will further leverage model and ecosystem advantages to connect with the real world, deepen integration into daily life, and serve a broad user base.