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Alibaba tests paid AI appetite with US$30 annual office-assistant subscription
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Minxiao Changin ShenzhenPublished: 7:30pm, 11 Aug 2026Updated: 9:11pm, 11 Aug 2026
Alibaba Group Holding is asking app users to open their wallets for its artificial intelligence office assistant, as the Chinese technology giant tests whether businesses and consumers are ready to pay for its digital assistant.
The e-commerce giant’s Qwen app now offers three membership tiers for the assistant, with annual plans ranging from 200 yuan (US$29.60) to 1,499 yuan for its flagship version, according to the listing on Apple’s App Store.
Users can also buy extra video generation credits, priced between 26 yuan and 968 yuan, depending on usage limits.
The Qwen chatbot remains free to use. Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Running large language models and multi-modal agents at scale requires vast computing resources, making monetisation critical to offsetting rising infrastructure costs as the technology matures.
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Alibaba is actively expanding Qwen beyond a stand-alone chatbot into a broader AI agent ecosystem.
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