Alibaba Embeds Voice AI Into Chinese Vehicles

Chinese tech giant Alibaba plans to add its Qwen AI model into several vehicle brands.

This integration was reported last week by CNBC, which noted that this is happening as the automotive industry tries to add more digital features to attract buyers as the market for electric vehicles cools.

In the case of Alibaba, these features will let drivers do things like track packages, order food and reserve hotel rooms using voice commands. The system melds on-device processing with cloud-based computing to interpret voice commands, plan multi-step tasks and link with services like payments and navigation, the report added.

Carmakers that will integrate Qwen into their vehicle systems include BYD, Geely and a local offshoot of Volkswagen, the report added. CNBC said it wasn’t immediately clear if the company planned to make its artificial intelligence (AI) features available in cars sold outside China.

According to the report, Cadillac has also showcased a new model with voice-assistant capabilities that can connect with Doubao AI, the model from Alibaba rival ByteDance.

At the end of 2024, PYMNTS found that 75% of carmakers were planning on integrating AI into their vehicles.

A report one year later found that these efforts didn’t just apply to commercial AI products, but also using the tech in engineering, manufacturing and design. For example, BMW’s AIQX quality platform runs alongside assembly operations and looks for potential issues as components progress through each stage along the factory floor.

“Instead of waiting for defects to appear at the end of the line, engineers can intervene mid-process, reducing rework and operational delays,” PYMNTS wrote.

More recently, PYMNTS examined the expanding role of voice AI in the digital economy. In an analysis earlier this year, PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster argued that voice is on the cusp of becoming the connective tissue between consumers and agentic commerce systems.

“Voice will finally pull agentic commerce onto the mobile phone by turning complex, desktop-only ‘go do this for me’ prompts into natural, spoken conversations that consumers can have anywhere,” Webster wrote, describing voice not as an incremental feature but as a way to unlock execution at scale.

This trend extends to the automotive space as well. For example, Apple has said it plans to open its vehicle interface, CarPlay, to other companies’ voice-controlled AI chatbots, rather than allowing only its voice-assistant Siri to operate CarPlay.