Alipay on Monday launched China’s first full-stack agentic commerce platform at a partner conference in Hangzhou, giving merchants tools to transition from digital operations to services run entirely by AI agents. The platform lets businesses with no existing AI capability convert web pages, products, and service workflows into agent-ready skills and MCP tools, a standard format usable by AI agents across different systems.
Merchants already running AI services can build and manage their own AI agents to handle tasks such as product recommendations and membership programs. The platform connects these merchants to Ah Bao, Alipay’s consumer-facing AI agent launched in June 2026, which already reaches more than 10,000 everyday services through conversation, including paying utility bills, booking pet services, and finding EV chargers.
How the AHA Protocol Connects Agents
At the core of the platform is Alipay’s AHA interoperability protocol, which enables different AI agents and devices to work together seamlessly. Through AHA, Ah Bao integrates Alipay’s payment, identity, risk-management, and fulfillment services into a single interface. Retail brands including KFC, Mixue Bingcheng, and Luckin Coffee have already integrated their services, allowing customers to place orders and make payments through the agent.
Alipay demonstrated the protocol’s cross-platform capability at the conference. In one example, a user asked an agent running on a StepFun phone to find the nearest EV charger and order a coffee. The agent generated a combined order without the user switching between apps, illustrating how AHA breaks down the silos between different AI assistants.
Developer Incentives and Market Push
To attract developers and merchants to the new platform, Alipay launched an incentive program offering 100 million free tokens per user, subsidies on tokens used in real transactions, and reduced payment fees. The move comes as Alipay AI Pay, its payment solution for AI agent transactions, surpassed 120 million weekly transactions in the past week.
Cyril Han, chief executive of Ant Group, said AI agents would become a new interface connecting users with merchants, and that agentic commerce would grow rapidly over the next six to 12 months. As of August 2026, Ah Bao is connected with five smartphone brands covering more than 70 percent of China’s market, along with 16 automakers, giving the platform significant reach ahead of competitors.
Sources: TechNode Global; The Asian Banker; Alipay official statement
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