Alipay Launches Agent Emergence Award With 10 Million Yuan Annual Fund

Registration opens Sept. 10. Users can swipe right within Alipay and tell Abao, Alipay's AI assistant, Agent Emergence Award to learn about the contest and sign up. Developers do not need to write code and can build agents through natural language. Shortlisted or winning works receive cash prizes; mature products suitable for the market can also connect to Abao, giving them access to 1 billion users and ongoing operations.

Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi said the explosion of agents outside eight working hours is an inevitable trend. Alipay said the award aims to create a supply-demand cycle in which intelligent service supply meets fragmented daily-life needs, building an agent ecosystem for the AI era beyond the mini-program ecosystem.

The award has three features: a low participation threshold; a focus on life scenarios outside eight working hours; and a path from development to distribution that completes a commercialization loop. Individual developers face no coding requirement and no restrictions on development tools; they can use VibeCoding platforms such as Qmuse to generate applications through direct conversation. Merchant developers can connect to Alipay's AI open platform and choose development methods as needed. Alipay will gradually open platform capabilities including payment, security and data to provide developers with market-ready intelligent resources.

To encourage users to propose needs, the contest also offers incentives. Ordinary users can participate in a wishing mechanism, stating a real need worth solving. Their ideas may be realized by developers and may be selected for a quarterly Golden Idea Award, which carries 2,000 yuan in cash. The contest offers two creation directions: Life Good Helper, for individual developers to provide long-tail life services based on user needs; and New Consumption Experience, for merchants and institutional developers to upgrade intelligent services based on business scenarios.

The schedule is divided into quarterly shortlisting and an annual grand prize. First-round registration begins Sept. 10. Alipay will screen shortlisted works by quarter and announce the annual Agent Emergence Award winner in the fourth quarter of 2027.

Li Jun, president of Alipay's business group, said agents will inevitably move into broader life scenarios and the supply-demand ecosystem is waiting to be activated. The award is intended to prosper the agent ecosystem. As the agent era arrives, many small, marginal and personalized needs will be stimulated, such as combining a menu item that does not originally exist based on calorie, protein and taste requirements, ordering takeout while driving, or planning a pet-friendly nearby trip. These needs may not be large enough, but they are real, and they require more individual developers, merchants and institutions to participate, based on personal experience, platform tools and open capabilities, to continuously create new intelligent services.

As the builder and entry point of the agent ecosystem, Alipay has continued to expand the service ecosystem of Abao since launching the AI version of Alipay in June. Abao has completed AI adaptation for more than 10,000 services, covering 12 categories including dining, hotels and travel, pets, and civic services. It can also coordinate with agents such as Ant Afu and employment agent Xiaoye to complete professional tasks such as asking about health or finding part-time work.

Abao is also moving beyond Alipay into more smart terminals. Recently, Xiaomi Super Xiao Ai and Abao's cross-device collaboration was first publicly launched; users can speak needs to Xiao Ai and invoke Abao's life-service capabilities. Abao now has cross-device interconnection with five mainstream phone brands and 16 car brands including Li Auto and BYD, and has fixed-point cooperation with more than 60 car companies. Smart glasses, watches and large-model apps are also gradually integrating. Abao is becoming an omni-domain agent that crosses applications and devices, connecting different services and smart terminals, meaning merchants, institutions and individual developers can distribute intelligent services through Abao to different terminals.

Abao's service depth is also upgrading. A new services tab improves the fulfillment link, allowing service progress to be queried and managed. A new asynchronous task capability moves AI services from instant satisfaction to long-term errands. In an example launched with Starbucks, a user says once, Buy me a Starbucks iced Americano every day at 10, and Abao remembers the task, initiates the service at the time, and the user confirms and completes payment. The setting is made once, the service is initiated on time, and the process remains controllable. With its own capability evolution and the ecosystem stimulated by the Agent Emergence Award, what lies behind Abao is a growing agent world.