Alipay has officially launched its AI Open Platform, a merchant-facing infrastructure layer designed to let businesses package their services as plug-ins, Skills, or agents that can be invoked by AI assistants across phones, cars, and other smart terminals1. The platform is now in beta testing with a "single access, multi-device distribution" model2.
The July launch caps a three-month buildout of AI-native commerce infrastructure at Alipay. The company released full-stack AI payment products in May and followed in June with Abao, the AI-native version of Alipay. The AI Open Platform addresses the merchant side of that stack, standardizing how businesses expose services for AI consumption and how AI agents discover and transact those services securely.
KFC, Mixue Bingcheng, Luckin Coffee, Amap, Didi, and Wansuishan Wuxiacheng are among the first batch of merchants connected to the platform, spanning food delivery, transportation, travel, and lifestyle services.
The platform rests on two foundational protocols. The first is the ACT 2.0 Agentic Commerce Trust Protocol, developed by IIFAA Internet Trust Alliance with more than 20 partners including Zhipu AI. The second is the Agent Hub Access protocol for cross-device, cross-application service invocation, standardized under the MIIT AI Agent Interconnect framework. Alipay president Li Jun described the platform as providing "a trusted secure infrastructure for the future agent network interconnection".
The architecture targets a shift in how services are discovered and transacted: rather than users searching for merchants, AI agents select and execute services on the user's behalf, with Alipay positioning itself as the cross-terminal connectivity hub that mediates those interactions.
The launch arrives as China's AI ecosystem moves rapidly toward agent-native hardware and software stacks. StepFun launched the STEPX Neo, described as China's first vertically integrated AI agent smartphone, on July 13, pairing its own foundation models with an agent-native operating system ctx. ANALYSIS Alipay's platform occupies a complementary layer in this emerging stack: where devices like the STEPX Neo provide the agent-side runtime, the AI Open Platform provides the merchant-side service registry and trust infrastructure that agents need to transact on behalf of users.
ANALYSIS The involvement of IIFAA Internet Trust Alliance and standardization under the MIIT framework signals that Alipay is pursuing an interoperable, multi-vendor approach rather than a closed ecosystem — a design choice that could determine whether the platform becomes a shared rail or a proprietary channel.
The merchant roster — mixing major chains like KFC and Luckin Coffee with transportation platforms like Didi and Amap — suggests Alipay is prioritizing high-frequency, transaction-heavy service categories where agent-mediated commerce can demonstrate immediate utility.