Alibaba’s Qwen AI is coming to cars, allowing drivers order food and book hotels by voice

BEIJING — Chinese technology giant Alibaba’s In a statement on Friday, Qwen said its artificial intelligence model will be integrated into automakers’ vehicles. BYD and a local joint venture with Volkswagen as the industry looks to add more in-car digital services and compete for buyers in a slowing electric vehicle market.

The model will continue to work Nvidia‘s automotive chip system and is designed to work even with limited network connectivity.

Alibaba said certain models will allow drivers to order food, book hotels, buy tickets to attractions and track packages via voice commands, among other features.

The system combines on-device operations with cloud-based computing to interpret voice commands, plan multi-step tasks, and connect to services such as payments and navigation.

Automotive companies that will integrate Qwen into their vehicle systems include BYD, Geely, Li Auto, Changan, Dongfeng, BAIC, Great Wall Motor, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC IM Motors.

The announcement was made on the opening day of the Beijing Auto Show 2026.

Earlier this year, FAW Group’s Hongqi brand launched the Hongqi HS6 plug-in hybrid model by integrating Qwen into its in-car system.

The launch comes as Chinese automakers compete to attract buyers in a slowing electric car market and seek to differentiate through in-car software and services.

Replacing its four-ring logo with a wordmark, the local version of Audi in China said its second model (an electric SUV called E7X) will start pre-sales on May 8. Audi said at the auto show that it will include artificial intelligence features from ByteDance’s Doubao and iFlyTek.

It was not immediately clear whether artificial intelligence features would be available in cars exported outside China.

Cadillac, the American luxury vehicle division of General Motors, also introduced a new model with voice assistant features that can connect to ByteDance’s Doubao AI.