Alipay just opened the doors, well, a crack, on its new AI Open Platform. The invite-only beta gives enterprise developers, merchants, and third-party software vendors the ability to turn their existing mini-programs into AI-callable tools.
This is a company with nearly 1 billion monthly active users.
What the platform actually does
The AI Open Platform lets merchants and institutions plug their services directly into Alipay’s conversational AI interface, called “Abao.” Instead of users tapping through menus to find what they need, they can just talk to the app and the AI will call the right tool automatically.
Existing mini-programs, APIs, and service interfaces can be converted into AI-compatible tools without rebuilding from scratch.
