Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) stock gained after reports indicated the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut’s restructuring of its mobile artificial intelligence app.
The Jack Ma co-founded company is overhauling its main mobile AI app to make it more closely resemble OpenAI's ChatGPT.
The company plans to update its existing "Tongyi" apps on Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Android, rebranding them as "Qwen," named after its flagship AI model. Over the coming months, Alibaba will integrate agentic AI capabilities to enable in-app shopping experiences across platforms such as its Taobao marketplace, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
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.
Cloud Intelligence Group revenue jumped 26% to $4.66 billion, driven by AI product demand and public cloud growth, marking an eighth straight quarter of triple-digit AI product revenue growth. Alibaba also developed a new AI inference chip compatible with Nvidia Corp's (NASDAQ:NVDA) platform to support China's tech self-sufficiency and advance its $53 billion AI and cloud investment plan.
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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