Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) is expanding its enterprise artificial intelligence tools and connecting its domestic and international wholesale businesses, even as the company faces fresh scrutiny from U.S. security agencies over its AI practices.
Alibaba Takes AI Agents Into Rival Workplace Platforms
Alibaba Cloud launched an upgraded version of QoderWake, allowing customers to create AI-powered “digital employees” from a single-line description of a required role.
The workers can operate across Alibaba’s DingTalk, ByteDance’s Feishu and Tencent Holdings’ WeCom. Alibaba said the agents can absorb context from shared documents, calendars and group chats and execute tasks autonomously, SCMP reported on Wednesday.
QoderWake also offers 10 ready-made roles, including product manager, data analyst and software developer.
Alibaba said the platform has deployed nearly 100,000 digital employees since April, completing about 2 million tasks during the past three months.
The move follows the global rollout of QwenWork, Alibaba’s AI productivity platform targeting markets across Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
Alibaba Connects Domestic And Global Wholesale Businesses
Alibaba has also started integrating domestic wholesale platform 1688 with Alibaba.com, according to Jiemian.
The company placed both businesses under Alibaba Vice President and Alibaba.com President Kuo Zhang after grouping them into a Global Wholesale segment in its August financial reporting, Technode reported on Wednesday.
The restructuring aims to connect Chinese suppliers with overseas buyers through shared operations and AI tools, bringing two businesses that historically operated separately under closer management.
US Agencies Accuse Alibaba Of AI Distillation
Separately, the NSA, FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency accused Alibaba and several other Chinese AI companies of using distillation to extract information from U.S. AI models “at an industrial scale.”
The agencies alleged that Chinese companies routed requests through multiple pathways to bypass U.S. developers’ restrictions and improve their own models, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Chang rejected the broader accusations as a “deliberate attack on China’s development and progress in the AI industry,” adding that China opposes politicizing trade and technology issues.
The advisory adds regulatory pressure as Alibaba simultaneously pushes deeper into enterprise AI, international productivity software and cross-border commerce.
Analyst Consensus & Recent Actions: The stock carries a Buy rating with an average price forecast of $194.50. Recent analyst moves include:
- Susquehanna: Positive (Raises Forecast to $190.00) (Aug. 28)
- JP Morgan: Overweight (Raises Forecast to $210.00) (Aug. 21)
- Barclays: Overweight (Raises Forecast to $200.00) (Aug. 21)
Top ETF Exposure
- Baron Emerging Markets Select ETF (NYSE:BCEM): 2.35% Weight
- Nomura Focused Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NASDAQ:EMEQ): 2.44% Weight
- Robo Global Artificial Intelligence ETF (NYSE:THNQ): 2.26% Weight
Significance: Because BABA carries significant weight in these funds, any significant inflows or outflows for these ETFs will likely force automatic buying or selling of the stock.
Price Action
BABA Stock Price Activity: Alibaba shares were down 2.64% at $109.69 on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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