Alibaba brought its Qwen Open Platform online on 10 August, opening the Qwen app to third-party services running as agents across three terminal types: mobile, PC and AI glasses.
Who is in the first wave
The launch cohort covers more than ten sectors. Logistics brings SF Express, Kuaidi100 and Flash Delivery; housing brings Ziroom; mobility brings Hellobike and flight tracker Feichangzhun; finance brings Yingmi Funds' Qieman advisor; hardware brings Lenovo and Midea Smart Home. Alibaba's own Cainiao, Quark Drive and Quark Scanner sit alongside them.
The mechanic is the @ mention
Each partner gets a dedicated conversation space inside the app, summoned with an @ mention. From there a user can run the whole chain — query, selection, order, payment — without leaving Qwen. For developers the platform ships standardised protocols, account management, AI payments, order management and front-end components.
Not the model release people are waiting for
This is easy to confuse with two other Qwen stories and is neither. It is not the promised Qwen3.8-Max open-weights drop, which as of publication has not shipped — Alibaba's Hugging Face organisation shows nothing newer than its speech models from nearly three weeks ago. It is also distinct from the Qwen revenue-share licence terms reported last week.
What was not disclosed
No user numbers, no transaction volume, no revenue terms for partners. Reports differ on the count itself — some list 12 services, others name around 14 — so the sector count is firmer than the headline number. The AI-glasses support is Alibaba's claim and has not been independently demonstrated.