Alibaba integrated AI assistant into Taobao marketplace: the end of search queries

Alibaba has embedded its AI assistant Qwen directly into Taobao, its largest marketplace. Now customers don't search for products by keywords — they simply describe what they need, and the AI agent finds the best option from four billion items in the catalog. The integration took place last week and is already gaining momentum.

How agentic shopping works

Previously, a customer would open Taobao, type a search query, scroll through dozens of pages with similar products, and hope they could figure out the differences. It took time, was exhausting, and often ended in an impulse purchase.

Now, instead of this process, a customer can simply describe what they need: "I need a comfortable summer bag, not too expensive, in beige or cream tones, with a laptop compartment." Qwen will analyze this request, consider the user's browsing and purchase history, and then offer several options with price, reviews, and photos. The agent can even explain how one product differs from another.

This is a revolutionary shift. The search bar was the foundation of online commerce from its inception. For the first time in 20+ years, people are using a completely different tool to search for products.

Competition heated up the market

Alibaba is not the first and not alone. Competitors in the Chinese e-commerce market have been moving in this direction for a while:

• Baidu launched its own line of AI shopping assistants and embedded them in the main application
• JD.com developed AI agents that search for products by photos and recommend similar items
• Pinduoduo is experimenting with voice orders and AI natural language processing
• Meituan is expanding AI recommendation capabilities by accounting for real-time user behavior

The pressure is enormous. If you don't move fast, you can fall behind competitors. Alibaba understands this and is accelerating.

Why this is a turning point

Agentic commerce is not just a convenient feature. It is a fundamental shift in who controls product search. For two decades, platforms themselves decided which product to show first — and made money by giving sellers top search placement for a fee. Search advertising generated billions of dollars in revenue.

Now control is shifting to the AI agent. The algorithm decides which product to recommend, and it decides based on user data, purchase history, and personal preferences — not based on seller bids. This changes the entire economics of the marketplace.

For buyers — this can be good: they will get more relevant recommendations and save time. For sellers on the marketplace — this is a harsh change: you can no longer simply break into the top search results thanks to a large marketing budget. You will need to focus on product quality and reviews, because these factors will become decisive for the AI agent.

What this means for the global market

In Russia and the global market, such a shift will happen later — but it will happen. Yandex.Market, Ozon, Amazon, and other platforms will embed AI assistants. It is inevitable: too much money is at stake, and competition forces faster movement. The era when search was simply a network and a set of filters is ending. Ahead is an era where the AI agent itself decides what you need.