Alibaba builds an AI assistant into Taobao: the end of search queries

Alibaba has built its Qwen AI assistant directly into Taobao, its largest marketplace. Shoppers no longer search for products by keyword. They describe what they need, and an AI agent finds the best option among the four billion listings in the catalog. The integration went live last week and is already gaining momentum.

How agentic shopping works

Shoppers used to open Taobao, type a search query, scroll through dozens of pages of similar products and hope they could figure out the differences. It took time, was tiring and often ended in a random purchase.

Now a shopper 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 analyzes the request, takes into account the user's browsing and purchase history, and then offers several options with prices, reviews and photos. The agent can even explain how one product differs from another.

This is a revolutionary shift. The search bar has been the foundation of online retail since its birth. For the first time in 20+ years, people are using a completely different tool to find products.

Competition heats up the market

Alibaba is neither the first nor the only one. Its competitors in the Chinese e-commerce market have been moving in this direction for some time:

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

The pressure is enormous. Companies that don't hurry risk falling behind their rivals. Alibaba understands this and is accelerating.

Why this is a turning point

Agentic commerce is not just a handy feature. It is a fundamental shift in who controls product discovery. For two decades, platforms decided which product to show first, and they earned money by selling sellers paid placement at the top of search results. Search advertising generated billions of dollars in revenue.

Now control is passing to the AI agent. The algorithm decides which product to recommend, and it does so based on the user's data, purchase history and personal preferences, not on sellers' bids. That changes the entire economics of the marketplace.

For shoppers, this may be good news: they will get more relevant recommendations and save time. For marketplace sellers, it is a harsh change: a big marketing budget will no longer be enough to break into the top search results. They will need to focus on product quality and reviews, because those are the factors that will matter most to the AI agent.

What this means for the global market

In Russia and on the global market, this shift will come later, but it will come. Yandex Market, Ozon, Amazon and other platforms will build in AI assistants. It is inevitable: too much money is at stake, and competition forces everyone to move faster.

The era in which search was just a bar and a set of filters is ending. Ahead lies an era in which an AI agent decides what you need.