Alipay and WeChat are accelerating their layout of the agent ecosystem. What does the future hold for AI-powered payments?

Payment giants are accelerating the layout of the AI (Artificial Intelligence) ecosystem.

On June 14, multiple media reported that Ant Group is testing an AI version of Alipay. The reports stated that the new version will revolutionize the original user interaction, allowing users to enter the native AI interface with one click, achieving intelligence from services to fund management. The launch time is yet to be determined.

In response to the above information, Ant Group told Caijing that it has no official response for now.

At the Alipay AI Payment Ecosystem Conference at the end of May this year, the person in charge of Ant Group's AI payment-related business told the media that Alipay will undergo a revamp. Many intelligent services will be established within the app, new products and services will be launched, and AI payment capabilities will be embedded.

At that time, Li Jiajia, the co-president of Ant Group's Digital Payment Business Group, told Caijing that currently, Alipay does not consider business, revenue, or competition in its AI payment business. It only wants to play the role of an AI payment infrastructure and first expand the ecosystem. "When the ecosystem grows, commercial revenue will naturally follow," Li Jiajia said. One of the current phased key assessment indicators for Alipay's AI payment business is the number of intelligent agent developers on the Agent (intelligent agent) platform within the ecosystem.

Almost at the same time, Tencent also attempted to embed AI payment capabilities into its AI scenarios.

Recently, an insider at Tencent told Caijing that WeChat Pay is conducting a small-scale test of AI payment capabilities in its WorkBuddy and QClaw products and plans to open them to more intelligent agent platforms in the future. With WeChat Pay's AI payment capabilities, users can express their consumption needs during conversations with intelligent agents and experience an automated consumption process from intelligent agent recommendations to placing orders and using WeChat Pay.

Among them, WorkBuddy and QClaw are both consumer-level AI intelligent agent products launched by Tencent in early 2026, corresponding to functions such as office document processing and remote operation of instant messaging tools like WeChat and QQ.

Previously, there were also reports in the market that Tencent was planning an AI transformation of the WeChat app.

On June 8, the official WeChat developer account released "Guidelines for Developers to Access the AI Ecosystem," announcing that it will provide WeChat mini-program developers with the ability to access the WeChat AI ecosystem. "WeChat AI" mainly refers to the AI intelligent agent that Tencent is developing and embedding in the WeChat app.

Subsequently, internet platforms such as Didi, JD.com, Meituan, and Ctrip announced that they would be the first to access the WeChat AI ecosystem. In the future, users can directly complete daily tasks such as hailing a taxi, ordering takeout, and booking a hotel through the WeChat AI intelligent agent.

Behind the AI transformation of Alipay and WeChat is the ecological positioning of payment giants in the era of intelligent agents.

At the aforementioned Alipay AI Payment Ecosystem Conference, Han Xinyi, the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Ant Group, said that AI intelligent agents will revolutionize the "traffic is king" logic of the mobile internet era. In the future, the era of "traffic entrances" determined by humans will come to an end, and it will be replaced by the "ecosystem of intelligent agents." The scale and network effects of the intelligent agent ecosystem will determine the depth of the future business moat.

"If the news about the AI version of Alipay being tested is true, this should be the first leading app in China to undergo a full - scale AI transformation. It is a normal development direction for super apps to shift from a functional collection to an intelligent agent hub. It will become a super entrance for intelligent agents and is a measure for enterprises to seize the traffic entrance in the AI era and consolidate their own advantages through technology," Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry at Botong Consulting, told Caijing.

In the new business ecosystem, payment remains the key infrastructure to complete the business closed - loop. "Only when intelligent agents can conduct transactions and receive payments will more people be motivated to develop intelligent agents," Li Jiajia previously told the media. The expansion of the intelligent agent ecosystem scale is also a prerequisite for AI payment to form a sustainable business model.

In fact, AI payment has become the core infrastructure for technology giants' AI layout.

On June 11, JD.com officially released the Agent Autonomous Payment Protocol (hereinafter referred to as the "A2P2 Protocol"), aiming to build a security barrier in the autonomous payment scenario of AI intelligent agents.

A relevant person in charge of JD Technology said that JD.com, relying on its super supply chain and in - depth embedding in niche markets, covers more than 3,000 scenarios such as retail, logistics, health, industry, takeout, and housekeeping. It is one of the enterprises with the most AI application scenarios and the strongest industrial depth globally. This year, JD.com's R & D investment related to AI in its ecosystem has increased by more than 200%. In the future, it will build the world's largest physical - world operation center and promote AI from all industries to thousands of households.

"In the future, the autonomous payment of intelligent agents will play an increasingly important role. The emergence of the A2P2 Protocol fills the most critical trust gap in the payment field in the era of the intelligent economy," the relevant person in charge of JD Technology said. They hope to build industry norms for the autonomous payment of intelligent agents through the A2P2 Protocol and solve the trust problem in the "last mile" of AI payment.

The relevant person in charge of JD Technology told Caijing that next, JD.com will select internal and external scenarios for AI payment pilots, trying to allow intelligent agents to autonomously advance payment - related processes within a single task, such as API (Application Programming Interface) call billing, low - value tool purchases, and single - item travel service bookings.

Even earlier, payment platforms such as Alipay, WeChat Pay, JD Technology, and Du Xiaoman had all launched AI payment solutions for intelligent agents based on their respective ecosystems and capabilities.

Among them, Alipay announced the launch of four AI payment capabilities, namely "AI Pay," "AI Receive," "Token Pay," and "AI Wallet," to build a full - stack AI native payment system for the AI era. As of the end of May 2026, the number of Alipay AI payment transactions exceeded 300 million, supporting 95% of general intelligent agent frameworks, including general intelligent agents, intelligent devices, intelligent cockpits, and AI tool platforms.

In addition, technology and payment giants such as China UnionPay, Alipay, and Google have also previously laid out the AI payment ecosystem by releasing AI payment protocols.

"As the underlying financial infrastructure, payment always needs to be integrated into the ecosystem to show its vitality and competitiveness," a senior expert in the payment field said at a small - scale sharing meeting. Behind the game of AI payment protocols or standards is, first of all, an ecological game. Therefore, platforms with ecological support such as JD.com and Alipay will have a comparative advantage in future competition.

(The author is a reporter from Caijing)

This article is from the WeChat official account "Caijing May Flower" (ID: Caijing - MayFlower). Author: Tang Jun, Editor: Zhang Wei. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.