Alibaba introduced its Qwen 3.5 artificial intelligence model. The new model is designed specifically for autonomous AI agents capable of executing complex tasks independently. This release aligns with a competitive period among Chinese technology firms during the Lunar New Year holiday. The launch follows a disruptive year initiated by the startup DeepSeek, which altered global AI dynamics with cost-efficient models. Alibaba positions Qwen 3.5 as a significant upgrade in capability and operational efficiency for enterprise developers.
According to Alibaba, Qwen 3.5 offers substantial improvements over its predecessors regarding cost and performance. The model is 60 percent cheaper to operate and processes large workloads eight times more effectively than the previous iteration. It features “visual agentic capabilities,” which allow the AI to perform autonomous actions across mobile and desktop applications without requiring user intervention. The company stated that the model supports over 200 languages, expanding its reach to include dialects used in South Asia, Oceania, and Africa, alongside enhanced reasoning and image processing functions.
Alibaba claims that Qwen 3.5 achieves superior results compared to leading U.S. models on several performance benchmarks. The company asserts that the model outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-5.2, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5, and Google’s Gemini 3. In a formal statement, Alibaba described the model as “built for the Agentic AI Era,” noting it helps developers “move faster and do more with the same compute.” The firm emphasized setting a new benchmark for capability per unit of inference cost, highlighting the model’s efficiency in resource utilization.
The introduction of Qwen 3.5 escalates the rivalry within China’s domestic AI market, where Alibaba currently trails ByteDance’s Doubao chatbot. QuestMobile data published in late December indicates Doubao leads the market with 155 million weekly active users, while DeepSeek holds 81.6 million. ByteDance launched Doubao 2.0 on Saturday, also positioning it for the “agent era.” Despite trailing in user base, Alibaba has utilized aggressive marketing to gain traction. A recent 3-billion-yuan ($433 million) campaign allowed users to buy food and beverages via the Qwen chatbot, resulting in a seven-fold increase in active users despite temporary technical glitches.
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