Alipay Launches Biggest Redesign in Nearly Two Decades, Pivoting to Conversation-Driven Agent Super Entry Point
Taylor Wilson
Alipay is testing a new AI interface built around conversation, not bolting an assistant onto the old app but rebuilding the entire entry point — Ant Group is betting that how users interact with services is about to change fundamentally.
What exactly is changing?
Users can toggle into a brand-new AI interface where a dialogue box replaces the traditional grid as the primary interaction layer.
The default view stays the classic Alipay; users opt in at their own pace — internally the team calls this migration path "swap the bird while keeping the cage."
This means → Ant is not forcing the switch. Early adopters move first; the rest follow gradually.
Why not build a standalone app?
The project traces back to late 2023, when the team first explored a separate native-AI app.
An AI life-assistant called "Zhi Xiaobao," launched at the September 2024 Bund Summit, underperformed expectations. Meanwhile, the in-app agent assistant quietly settled at millions of daily active users, generating real-world data.
In March 2025 the team officially dropped the standalone route. The logic was straightforward: serving the existing 1 billion-user base at zero migration cost beats rebuilding a traffic pool from scratch.
What is the hardest technical problem?
Alipay hosts millions of mini-programs spanning daily life, government services, healthcare, and education.
The core bottleneck is not understanding what a user says — it is making the AI understand the vast catalogue of services on the platform and which mini-program handles which task.
In plain terms = a user says "book me a hospital appointment"; the AI understands the request, but it still needs to know *which hospital's mini-program to call* — that is the real challenge.
How did they solve it?
The team adopted a "dual-track" strategy: push merchants to refactor services into MCP/Skill endpoints — a standard interface that lets AI call the service directly — while also letting the AI "screen-read" unreformed mini-programs under user authorization.
By December 2025 this technical path had been validated; the AI version of Alipay was then formally green-lit.
This means → Ant did not wait for every merchant to finish refactoring. It walks on two legs: direct connection where ready, screen-reading where not.
What is Ant's bigger Agent play?
Ant CEO Eric Jing has stated the strategic direction publicly: "Use AI to redo three service industries from scratch — daily-life services, finance, and health."
"Afu," the health-focused AI app, hit 15 million MAU within six months of launch; AI-powered payment transactions have exceeded 300 million.
Management positions the AI version of Alipay as an "Agent-service super-gateway," with plans to launch an AI open platform for merchants and developers and to extend across phones, in-car systems, and smart glasses.
This reflects Ant's core thesis: future interactions will not just be person-to-person but person-to-Agent and Agent-to-Agent — and Alipay aims to be the hub of that network.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.