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Newsletter N°86 - February 2026
💻 AI Platforms: Ant Group’s Alipay AI Pay and AQ Surpass 100 Million Users as Consumer AI Scales in China
Ant Group has reported that its AI-enabled payment product Alipay AI Pay and its independent AI health application AQ have each exceeded 100 million users, reaching the milestone during the high-traffic 2026 Chinese New Year period.
The announcement signals a new phase in the commercialization of consumer AI in China, where AI functionalities are increasingly embedded directly into everyday services rather than positioned as standalone experimental tools.
Alipay AI Pay, integrated within Alipay, enables users to complete transactions through AI-assisted interactions, including voice-based commands and conversational payment flows. Instead of navigating multiple screens manually, users can instruct the system to execute purchases in a more natural and streamlined manner. During the week of February 5 to 11, the service processed more than 120 million transactions, reflecting significant real-world usage during one of the most commercially intensive periods of the year. The scale of activity suggests that AI-driven payment interactions are becoming embedded into routine retail and lifestyle spending, rather than remaining a niche feature.
Importantly, adoption has not been confined to China’s top-tier cities. Reports indicate strong uptake in third- and lower-tier urban areas, highlighting how AI-enabled financial services are scaling across a broad demographic base. In a market where mobile payments are already deeply entrenched, AI is emerging as the next interface layer in digital commerce, enhancing efficiency and personalization rather than replacing existing infrastructure.
In contrast to AI Pay’s integration within the payments ecosystem, AQ (Ant A-Fu / 蚂蚁阿福) operates as a standalone vertical AI platform focused on digital health. Launched in 2025, AQ provides AI-driven health consultations, interactive medical Q&A, personalized recommendations, and wellness management tools. The platform combines generative AI capabilities with structured medical datasets and healthcare partnerships, positioning it as a specialized health assistant rather than a general-purpose chatbot. By surpassing 100 million users within months of launch, AQ has rapidly become one of the largest AI-native health applications globally.
Ant Group’s AI health app AQ helps users manage everyday health concerns and build healthier habits
The growth of AQ reflects rising demand for accessible digital health services, particularly in regions where access to in-person medical consultation may be limited or time-consuming. Its functionality extends from everyday health inquiries to structured guidance and monitoring, demonstrating how vertical AI applications can achieve mass adoption when integrated with structured data and ecosystem partnerships.
Taken together, the parallel milestones of Alipay AI Pay and AQ illustrate a broader strategic shift at Ant Group: AI is no longer confined to backend risk control, fraud detection, or algorithmic optimization. Instead, it is becoming a direct consumer interface across multiple verticals, from commerce to healthcare. In China’s highly integrated super-app ecosystem, this convergence of AI and high-frequency daily services may offer a blueprint for how AI platforms can achieve rapid mass adoption when layered onto existing digital infrastructure.