Single Access, Multi-Device Distribution! Alipay AI Open Platform Launches Beta Testing
After launching its AI-powered full-stack payment product in May and the new AI version of Alipay (referred to as "Abao") in June, Alipay officially launched its AI Open Platform on July 7. This platform opens AI access capabilities to merchants, institutions, service providers, smart terminals, large model platforms, and other ecosystem partners.
This marks a significant step forward in Alipay's AI strategy, pointing toward a future transformation in human-service interaction. Instead of searching, clicking, or navigating, users will directly express their needs to AI, which will understand, match, execute services, and complete transactions. The intermediary between people and services will no longer be apps or other application interfaces, but AI intelligent agents (Agents).
Li Jun, President of the Alipay Business Group, stated that intelligent agents will become action units with independent thinking capabilities in the AI era. The Alipay AI Open Platform aims to build a cross-end interconnected hub for intelligent agents—from generation to distribution, interaction, and payment.
Unlike most platforms that build closed loops within their own ecosystems, merchants using the Alipay AI Open Platform can not only access "Abao" to provide intelligent services to 1 billion users but also choose cross-end connectivity. Through "Abao," merchants can connect to mobile phones, car systems, AI glasses, IoT, and other smart terminals and large model platforms, achieving "one-time access, multi-terminal distribution, and unified management."
The platform is now open for invitation testing by enterprises and service providers. Brands and institutions such as KFC, Mingshi Ice City, Luckin Coffee, AutoNavi Taxi, Didi, and Wansui Mountain Martial Arts City are among the first to join, covering high-frequency scenarios like dining, transportation, tourism, and lifestyle services.
With the release of this industry-facing open platform, the product framework for Alipay's intelligent agent commercial network is essentially complete.
Building an Intelligent Agent Network from Generation to Distribution
The Alipay AI Open Platform provides traditional internet merchants with an easy-to-use "toolkit" to transition into the AI operation era.
After packaging their services into AI-callable MCP plugins, Skills, or Agents, merchants can access Alipay's "Abao." They can also authorize these services to be called by mainstream mobile AI assistants, smart car systems, IoT devices, third-party large model applications, and AI glasses, reaching a diverse user base across different ecosystems.
Behind these terminals lie real consumer scenarios. For example, while driving, the car system's AI can proactively recommend nearby restaurants and complete reservations; while watching short video clips of popular movies, users can simultaneously trigger their mobile devices to book tickets.
With cross-end connectivity, the service radius of intelligent agents is greatly expanded. Merchants do not need to develop separately for each terminal—the open platform acts as an intermediary layer, with the large model handling protocol conversion and supply-demand matching uniformly.
Operational Transformation Based on the Intelligent Agent Network
When merchants and institutions enter the service delivery stage with AI intelligent agents, operations will also change, enabling service collaboration based on the intelligent agent network.
Customer acquisition logic has changed. Competition for customer acquisition will shift from vying for search entry points to how services are called. Traffic is no longer limited to a single platform; instead, it can connect services online and offline, across software and hardware endpoints, and to all users through a unified interface.
Operational processes have changed. At the transaction level, intelligent agents can be authorized to perform continuous operations such as placing orders, executing, and paying. After completing a transaction, they can also analyze customer feedback and loss data, automatically analyzing and intelligently issuing discounts or recalling customers.
R&D costs have changed. Merchants' existing assets, such as mini programs, are not discarded; they can be smoothly upgraded into AI-callable capabilities. More importantly, one set of merchant intelligent agent services can be listed on multiple intelligent terminals. Users can call store services from any device, reducing repeated development and long-term maintenance costs.
Cooperation mechanisms have changed. Based on the intelligent agent network, for user demands, large models can call different services according to execution plans to create collaborative connections, jointly building service processes for users. Each merchant service has the opportunity to participate in the same task, bringing new conversions.
Providing Trustworthy Security Infrastructure for Interconnection of Intelligent Agent Networks
As intelligent agents move from "being able to converse" to "being able to handle tasks," they require not only model understanding capabilities but also stable connection interfaces that ensure service accessibility, trusted commercial payments, and service coordination.
It is reported that the Alipay AI Open Platform will collaborate with the Agentar intelligent agent development platform under Ant Group to provide full-stack support for merchants, including computing power scheduling, model training, and application development. In terms of service access, it offers differentiated access methods based on service MCP, Skill, or Agent, providing different tools for different types of clients: it supports quick setup with zero-code or low-code methods; for complex business scenarios, it offers industry-specific ecological solution integration and R&D implementation.
On the intelligent agent payment infrastructure front, in April this year, Alipay released version 2.0 of the ACT protocol (Agentic Commerce Trust Protocol). This protocol was jointly developed by Alipay, Zhipu, and over 20 other manufacturers under the IIFAA Internet Trusted Authentication Alliance. The new version built a payment capability framework and trust mechanism for intelligent agent interactions.
For cross-end service calling, the Alipay AI Open Platform innovatively introduced the AHA interface protocol (Agent Hub Access, Multi-Agent Interconnection Collaboration Scheme). This protocol solves the problem of how mobile AI assistants can seamlessly call Alipay's vast life services across applications and devices, filling the gap in general protocols in these commercial scenarios. It is an industry standard protocol published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, titled "Interconnection of Artificial Intelligence Agents."
Li Jun said that the Alipay AI Open Platform is committed to providing trustworthy security infrastructure for the interconnection of future intelligent agent networks, making "people finding services" become trustworthy and visible as "services finding people."
It is reported that multiple terminal brands, including mobile phone manufacturers and smart glasses, will soon join the Alipay AI ecosystem through the "AHA" protocol. In the future, consumers will be able to use dialogue to let "Abao" complete ordering, hailing a taxi, and booking tickets—whether they are at home, in a car, on a mobile phone, or on more wearable smart devices.
