The Jack Ma co-founded company is overhauling its main mobile AI app to make it more closely resemble OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Alibaba stock gained over 86% on the back of its AI-driven cloud computing segment performance and aggressive AI spending. It posted first-quarter revenue of $34.57 billion, up 2% year-over-year, surpassing the consensus estimate of $34.26 billion.
Alibaba's long-term goal is to develop Qwen into a fully autonomous AI agent and eventually release an international version.
Alibaba has dedicated more than 100 developers to the Qwen revamp, part of the AI investment push outlined by CEO Eddie Wu in September.
While the updated app will remain free initially, the company intends to use its growing user base to introduce paid consumer services in the future.
Recently, Alibaba's Qwen3-Max AI model outperformed top U.S. and Chinese rivals in a live crypto trading challenge, turning a $10,000 investment into a 22.32% gain, while OpenAI's GPT-5 plunged 62.66%.
Qwen3-Max-Thinking, Alibaba's new reasoning model, matched OpenAI's GPT-5 Pro in global mathematics contests such as AIME 2025 and HMMT, achieving 100% accuracy and demonstrating advanced problem-solving capabilities.
On CNBC’s "Mad Money Lightning Round," Jim Cramer recommended Alibaba as a top Chinese stock pick.
BABA Price Action: Alibaba Gr Hldgs shares were up 3.21% at $162.98 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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