Alibaba Backed Firm Launches AI Life Assistant

Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, has launched the Zhixiaobao app, a standalone artificial intelligence assistant app. Categorized as a life assistant, Zhixiaobao can help users order meals, hail taxis, book tickets, and discover local dining and entertainment options while conveniently accessing third-party services in the firm’s Alipay payment platform.

As reported by the South China Morning Post, the app also provides a number of built-in AI agents, such as “English-language tutor” and “fitness pro,” that come with expert-level domain knowledge.

According to company president and Chief Financial Officer Cyril Han Xinyi, this move shows Ant Group’s efforts to turn AI into a “practical, user-focused solution," which would make Zhixiaobao a “valuable tool in everyday life.”

Zhixiaobao is built on Ant Group’s foundational Bailing large language model (LLM), and users can use it by downloading the mobile app or pulling down the homepage of the Alipay app.

The app works with a simple voice prompt—for example, “help book a flight next Friday from Beijing to Xiamen, take-off time before noon"—and Zhixiaobao comes up with a list of flights to choose from. One click on the selected flight takes users directly to booking, which is processed by Alibaba’s online travel service Fliggy.

Moreover, Zhixiaobao users can explore over 8,000 digital life services and more than 4 million mini-apps provided by Alipay, making it useful for almost all online functions in China.