Alibaba’s Qwen App teams up with Amap to bring AI travel planning to 170 million users

Alibaba’s Qwen App has teamed up with Amap, China’s leading digital mapping and navigation platform serving over 170 million daily active users, bringing AI-driven travel planning to the palm of users’ hands, the e-commerce giant posted a statement on its digital newsroom, Alizila.

Amap is the first major Alibaba ecosystem service to fully integrate with Qwen, signaling a major step in the app’s evolution as a comprehensive life and work assistant.

Seamless navigation

Leveraging Amap’s vast real-time traffic data and a database of over 200 million points of interest (POIs), Qwen App can now transform vague or complex user requests into actionable travel plans. From restaurant and hotel recommendations to route planning and navigation, users can access all services through a single conversational interface.

For example, a user could type: “Find highly rated hotels near Hupao Street in Hangzhou that are comfortable and offer free cancellation, and locate nearby pharmacies with emergency supplies.” The Qwen App interprets the request, filters millions of POIs using live data, and delivers tailored recommendations in an interactive visual card format. The system also supports multimodal inputs, allowing users to upload photos or files for location recognition and instant navigation.

Destination insights

The integration incorporates Amap’s “Street Stars”, an AI-powered ranking system for offline destinations, enabling Qwen to refine recommendations for local restaurants, hotels, and tourist attractions.

Since its public beta launch on November 17, Qwen App has quickly climbed into the top three of Apple’s App Store free apps chart in China and surpassed 30 million downloads within just 23 days, making it one of the fastest-growing AI applications in the country.

Alibaba plans to expand this integration beyond travel, aiming to connect core lifestyle and productivity services, including food delivery, travel booking, and e-commerce, directly into Qwen App. This strategy reflects Alibaba’s broader vision of transforming Qwen into a centralized AI-powered platform, seamlessly linking users’ digital and real-world experiences.

With this integration, Qwen App positions itself not just as an AI chatbot but as an intelligent travel and lifestyle assistant, capable of planning trips, recommending local services, and responding dynamically to real-world conditions, demonstrating Alibaba’s push toward deeper AI ecosystem connectivity and user convenience.

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Nathaniel Alexander Abaño

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