When Alibaba users put on AI glasses, will the path of AI to C become clearer?
On July 26th, Alibaba announced its first self-developed AI glasses - Quark AI Glasses.
In the first half of the year, manufacturers such as Rokid, Xiaomi, and TCL Thunderbird launched new smart AI glasses one after another, kicking off the second phase of the "Hundred Glasses War." Now, Alibaba's entry into the market has further intensified the competition.
According to the latest information, this product is equipped with Tongyi Qianwen's large model and Quark AI capabilities. It also supports Gaode Navigation, Alipay's visual payment, Taobao's Scan to Search, and Fliggy's travel itinerary reminders. It's like wearing Alibaba's entire ecosystem on your face. The product has completed development and is expected to be launched within this year.
Different from the strategies of startups and mobile phone manufacturers, who are competing to launch new AI hardware products in hopes of creating a hit, Quark AI Glasses are Alibaba's first AI hardware product, which means completing the full chain from large AI models to applications and then to hardware. The last internet giant to enter the wearable smart hardware market might have been ByteDance with its Pico.
Compared to mobile phones, which need to be taken out, the wearable nature of AI glasses seems to better meet the ideal state of AI hardware being online 24/7. Whether it was the previous competition among AI super - apps or the current layout of native AI hardware, it's essentially a battle for future traffic entrances. As the consumer market is a must - win territory, Alibaba naturally won't be absent. The launch of Quark Glasses is another step in Alibaba's AI - to - C strategy.
From Focusing on B2B to Emphasizing B2C
Alibaba's foray into AI - to - C didn't start early. While ByteDance, Tencent, and Baidu directly launched AI applications like Doubao, Yuanbao, and Wenxiaoyan for consumers based on their self - developed large models, Alibaba's previous AI layout mainly focused on B2B services, with the emphasis on large AI models and AI and cloud infrastructure.
In February this year, Alibaba announced that it would invest at least 380 billion yuan in the next three years in the construction of cloud and AI hardware infrastructure. On one hand, Alibaba provides standardized API interfaces through its cloud platform, allowing enterprise customers to access pre - trained general models. On the other hand, it supports customized model training services for the specific needs of vertical industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail.
This model has achieved remarkable results. In Alibaba's fiscal year 2025, driven by strong AI demand, the revenue of Alibaba Cloud's public cloud business accelerated, and the revenue of AI - related products has achieved triple - digit growth for seven consecutive quarters. The full - year revenue of Alibaba Cloud has achieved double - digit growth.
Compared with its well - developed B2B AI business, Alibaba's B2C AI business has been lukewarm.
Although Alibaba has a leading edge in the model field and its consumer - facing product, Tongyi APP, has been steadily updated, it's obvious that Tongyi APP has far lower user recognition in the consumer market than AI applications like Doubao and DeepSeek.
The top 30 list of AI product downloads in 2024 released by Qimai Data shows that Doubao has accumulated over 200 million downloads, ranking second. Kimi ranks seventh, Wenxiaoyan ranks ninth, while Tongyi only ranks 18th, with about 20 million downloads.
Source: Qimai Data
It's not that Alibaba can't or doesn't want to develop the B2C market. The problem is that its previous AI - to - C layout has been wavering in strategy, trying to achieve too many things at once. On one hand, it doesn't want to give up the huge potential of the B2C market, so it needs Tongyi APP to maintain its market presence. On the other hand, it hasn't been able to form a clear business focus and resource allocation like its B2B business.
It wasn't until the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025 that, after seeing ByteDance successfully empower its core business with AI products like Doubao and Jimeng, and the explosive growth of AI applications like DeepSeek, and considering its own situation of reaching the ceiling in multiple business traffic, Alibaba decided to officially focus on its AI - to - C strategy, running parallel with its AI - to - B strategy.
In December 2024, the "Tongyi" application team was officially spun off from Alibaba Cloud and merged into Alibaba's Smart Information Business Group. In February this year, Alibaba recruited Steven Hoi, a world - class AI scientist, to be in charge of the multimodal basic models and agent - related application solutions for its AI - to - C business. In March, Wu Jia, a young executive who led the major upgrade of "New Quark," was appointed as the person in charge of Alibaba's AI - to - C business.
Currently, Alibaba's AI - to - C business layout consists of two major business groups. One is the Alibaba Smart Information Business Group, which includes Quark, UC, Shuqi Novel, and Tongyi APP. The other is the Alibaba Smart Interconnection Business Group, which consists of Tmall Genie, AIoT business, and smart glasses.
By reorganizing the team, introducing top - notch talents, and integrating core product lines... Although Alibaba's official layout for AI - to - C started a bit late, it has been taking swift actions. Currently, the "dual business groups" led by Wu Jia have the advantage of business synergy. However, compared with the AI - native advantages of competitors like ByteDance, the key challenge for Alibaba is how to fully leverage the potential of the Tongyi large model to achieve continuous user growth in the consumer market.
From Large AI Models to Reaching Consumers
From the structure of Alibaba's two AI - to - C business groups, it can be seen that Alibaba's AI - to - C layout focuses on large models and their applications (software) and smart hardware.
The synergy between these two aspects can build a complete ecological closed - loop. By unleashing the capabilities of the Tongyi large model, it can drive the innovative development of various applications. Then, the growing demand from the application side can stimulate the expansion and growth of the smart hardware market. At the same time, smart hardware can collect a large amount of data as an entry point for model iteration and optimization.
Among them, Tongyi APP and Quark, as AI applications, have successively accessed the Tongyi Qianwen large model, becoming the entry points for AI - to - C and realizing the connection from large AI models to consumer applications.
In July 2023, Tongyi APP, the official application of Alibaba's native large model, was officially launched on the app stores. In early 2025, after being officially incorporated into Alibaba's AI - to - C business, it underwent a major overhaul. In addition to accessing Alibaba's latest open - source inference model, Tongyi Qianwen QwQ - 32B, it also launched a personalized intelligent agent as an interactive object. This upgrade is seen as a direct competitor to Doubao.
Tongyi APP on the left, Doubao on the right
Quark was born in 2016 based on the UC browser. It initially entered the market as a smart search tool with a minimalist interface and no ads, and then transformed into a smart assistant and an all - around AI assistant. On March 13th this year, Alibaba launched "New Quark" and defined it as an "AI super - box." Now, Quark is no longer just a browser that includes a network disk, a scanner, and college entrance examination services. It's an AI agent heavily invested in by Alibaba.
Alibaba officially positions New Quark as its flagship AI application. It can be said that Quark is now like ByteDance's Doubao and Tencent's Yuanbao, playing a core role in Alibaba's AI product matrix, even surpassing the status of Tongyi APP.
Obviously, Alibaba's AI - to - C strategy prioritizes promoting Quark's transformation into an AI application rather than focusing on Tongyi Qianwen APP, its native application. One of the most important reasons for this is the user base.
In terms of the download scale of AI products, Qimai Data shows that by the end of 2024, the cumulative downloads of Quark exceeded 370 million, topping the 2024 AI product download list, far exceeding the scale of Doubao, which ranked second. More than 50% of its users are post - 2000s.
Looking at monthly active users, data from QuestMobile shows that in May this year, the monthly active users of AI applications including Tencent's Yuanbao and Kimi showed a downward trend. It can be seen that large - scale advertising investment in the early stage can bring short - term user growth, but it's difficult to retain users obtained through such costly means. For Alibaba, Quark, with hundreds of millions of active users, "comes with its own traffic" and is the most ready - made scenario for AI implementation.
Although Quark has transformed from a "movie - watching tool + network disk + college entrance examination assistant" to an "all - around AI assistant," users' perception of its AI positioning is limited. From the search results on social media with "Quark" as the keyword, most users still regard it as a tool for searching or storing resources. At this time, Quark is more like a special product that is "the most AI - enabled browser and the most browser - traffic - dependent AI application." The proportion of "effective users" who actually use the AI functions among Quark's 150 million monthly active users still needs to be verified.
Search results for the keyword "Quark" on Xiaohongshu
In contrast, although the monthly active users of AI - native applications like Doubao, DeepSeek, and Kimi are fewer than Quark's, they were initially positioned as conversational generative AI, which has formed stronger user stickiness, in sharp contrast to Quark's "all - encompassing" nature.
Quark has a wide range of functions, covering scenarios such as search, network disk, scanning, and college entrance examination services.
It's also worth noting that Quark's user activity highly depends on specific scenarios. For example, during the college entrance examination volunteer - filling period in the summer of 2024, Quark's monthly active users reached nearly 200 million, but its daily monthly active users hover around 100 million. This shows that Quark faces the challenges of low user penetration and retention rates in daily use.
The Next - Generation Super Entrance
The large AI models and AI applications (Tongyi APP and Quark) mentioned above belong to the software aspect of Alibaba's AI - to - C layout. Alibaba's layout in smart hardware aims not only at the next hit AI terminal product but also at the next - generation super entrance, such as AI glasses.
So far, the Quark AI Glasses officially announced at the WAIC are Alibaba's first self - developed AI hardware product. Compared with existing products on the market, Quark AI Glasses don't focus solely on hardware parameters but play the ecological card with Tongyi Qianwen and the entire series of applications.
At present, AI glasses on the market still highly rely on the computing power support and functional synergy of smartphones and cannot be used independently. Quark AI Glasses, on the other hand, are a more ideal terminal for the AI era. Users don't need to take out their phones or open apps. They can complete the most common daily operations such as navigation, QR - code payment, and product price comparison just by looking up or giving voice commands.
As Song Gang, the person in charge of the smart terminal business of Alibaba's Smart Information Business Group, defined the core features of Quark AI Glasses: First, it must be a pair of comfortable glasses to wear. Second, it should be an all - day - available smart terminal. Most importantly, it should be a portable AI super - assistant.
However, applications limited to Alibaba's ecosystem alone obviously can't achieve the function of an "AI super - assistant." As a smart hardware product targeting the mass market, Quark AI Glasses need to break through the ecological barriers and achieve broader software compatibility. In addition, it also faces problems inherent in AI glasses, such as the core functions like voice interaction highly relying on the network environment and the limited battery life being unable to support all - day use.
The appearance of Quark AI Glasses not only depicts a bright future for B2C but also showcases its capabilities. It's reported that Quark AI Glasses are equipped with a dual - chip and dual - battery system and use a dual - optical engine design. This not only provides longer battery life and more flexible resource scheduling but also makes the glasses slimmer and lighter.
Song Gang also said that Quark AI Glasses will cooperate with globally leading eyewear brands to further enhance the user experience by integrating technology, channels, services, and C2M customization capabilities. At the same time, according to Zhidongxi, Alibaba is providing AI capabilities support to leading AI glasses companies such as Rokid and Thunderbird Innovation based on its Qwen series of models.
It seems that although Quark Glasses target the consumer market, they are also making a full - scale effort in both B2B and B2C. Whether it can truly make the leap from a technological concept to commercial success still needs to be tested by the market after its official launch. One thing is certain: Alibaba has set its sights on AI glasses as the AI super - entrance.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Yicai Business School." Author: Yicai Business School. Republished by 36Kr with permission.