Alipay Unveils China’s First Full‑Stack Agent‑Commerce Infrastructure and AHA Interconnection Protocol as 2026 Marks Commercial Agent Industry’s Launch Year

Hangzhou, China – 2026 is widely recognised across industry circles as the inaugural year for agent‑driven commerce, marking a decisive shift from demonstrator‑only pilot projects to large‑scale industrial roll‑out across domestic markets. Alipay has convened China’s first ecological partner summit dedicated to the commercial deployment of AI agents in Hangzhou, rolling out the country’s first full‑stack commercial agent infrastructure alongside the AHA (Agent Hub Access) multi‑agent cross‑device interconnection protocol suite.

Alipay’s super‑service agent, A‑Bao, has completed AI‑enabled upgrades for more than 10,000 service items, with cross‑terminal capabilities covering five major smartphone brands and 16 mainstream vehicle manufacturers. Merchant integration demand remains robust, with substantial development workloads already scheduled well into next year.

Industry projections point to significant market expansion for agent‑led commerce within the coming six to 12 months. Against a backdrop of plateauing internet traffic and steep customer‑acquisition costs that constrain traditional digital‑business growth, AI agents stand poised to resolve a long‑standing bottleneck within commercial workflows by lifting overall information‑conversion efficiency. Artificial‑intelligence capabilities have advanced beyond generative content creation and code generation, enabling automated multi‑scenario task execution and complex workflow completion. Technical readiness, merchant appetite for operational efficiency gains and viable, sustainable commercial frameworks combine to underpin the projected market surge.

Successive technological revolutions have reshaped commercial connectivity paradigms, with the search era and app‑centric ecosystem each reconfiguring how human users access digital services. The agent‑driven era will bring about fundamental shifts in underlying operational logic. Instead of focusing on a fixed large‑scale user base, market participants will adapt to a landscape defined by hundreds of millions of interacting agents, bringing fresh divisions of labour, revised value‑distribution models and heightened matching efficiency that rewrite established commercial rules. AI agents will function as new intermediaries linking vast consumer groups and millions of merchants, unlocking an intent‑centred commercial ecosystem.

Scaling agent‑based commerce still presents tangible practical hurdles, yet viable solutions hinge less on pure technical advancement and more on collaborative ecological governance frameworks. Technical iteration consistently outpaces cross‑industry collaborative progress, a dynamic that supplies ongoing momentum for industrial evolution. Core challenges lie in building open, fair value‑sharing mechanisms that deliver commensurate returns for every stakeholder and sustain positive operational cycles. Alipay will leverage trust‑building, connectivity and open‑ecosystem principles to foster new AI‑powered commercial services and nurture expanding agent‑commerce ecosystems.

Agent‑driven commerce is moving beyond conceptual validation towards real‑world large‑scale implementation. Following mobile payments and digital service transformation, Alipay builds its renewed agent‑focused ecosystem around A‑Bao. End‑users can initiate public‑administration enquiries, daily‑life assistance and commercial transactions using natural‑language prompts. Summit attendees demonstrated live use‑cases, placing beverage orders, booking travel arrangements and participating in interactive marketing activities through simple voice commands. Functions can be invoked seamlessly across mobile‑phone agents, in‑car systems and smart‑glasses hardware to deliver end‑to‑end digital workflows.

Since opening for public testing in early June, A‑Bao has finished intelligent adaptation for over 10,000 services spanning eight core sectors including ride‑hailing, food‑and‑beverage ordering, cultural‑tourism ticketing and government‑affairs support. Major consumer‑facing brands and local‑service operators have progressively joined the ecosystem. Cross‑terminal co‑ordination channels are operational with five leading handset manufacturers representing more than 70 per cent of the domestic smartphone market. Vehicle‑oriented services reach 16 mainstream automotive marques, while formal co‑operation agreements are secured with more than 60 car‑makers. Compatibility is also being extended to emerging hardware categories such as smart eyewear, wearable devices and large‑model‑enabled applications. Integration with third‑party AI assistants has already lifted platform activity metrics on partner devices, generating substantial fresh user engagement.

Demand for merchant‑side integration has intensified since Alipay’s AI developer platform went live in July, with numerous development assignments queued for delivery in 2027.

To address widespread business requirements for transition from digital operations to intelligent operations, Alipay has released the domestic market’s first full‑stack commercial‑agent infrastructure. The newly launched AHA protocol suite tackles long‑standing industry fragmentation where agents built by different brands, platforms and hardware vendors operate in isolated silos, filling gaps in domestic industrial standards. Ant Group Digital Technologies has meanwhile rolled out the Agentar ecosystem edition, delivering all‑in‑one agent‑oriented services for merchant‑operation scenarios to advance AI‑powered service delivery and intelligent business upgrading.

Complementary ecological incentive schemes are being activated to lower entry barriers for merchants and developers. These include one hundred million units of complimentary token computing resources per participant, payment‑fee reductions, transaction‑related subsidies, plus open access to 57 atomic operational capabilities covering membership management, merchant‑issued coupons and credit‑evaluation tools.

A new shift in digital‑entry‑point dynamics is unfolding, as intelligent services grow pervasive, scenario‑oriented and instantly responsive. Future systems will see agents adapt pro‑actively to individual users, diverse hardware and varied real‑world contexts, rather than requiring users to adjust their behaviour to fit fixed digital offerings. Alipay’s full‑stack agent‑commerce infrastructure establishes a layered, low‑threshold and reusable intelligent‑operation framework suitable for businesses of all sizes. Distinct from disjointed standalone AI utilities, the infrastructure delivers a complete capability chain covering hosted foundation services, customised independent development and multi‑agent co‑ordination. Businesses can deploy intelligent operational workflows without heavy in‑house artificial‑intelligence expertise.

Merchants that have completed AI‑service transformation and possess agent‑operation ambitions can access Alipay’s open‑AI platform to construct agents, configure functional skills, orchestrate task sequences and oversee operational management. The platform unlocks intelligent use‑cases including consumer‑insight generation, product recommendation and membership‑relationship management to support autonomous agent operations. Ant Group Digital Technologies’ Agentar ecosystem edition supplies more than 200 pre‑built skill packages tailored for high‑frequency merchant workflows together with specialist digital‑expert agents. Template‑based custom development and one‑click connection into the A‑Bao ecosystem are supported. For sophisticated composite requirements, built‑in A2A (Agent‑to‑Agent) multi‑agent co‑ordination enables joint service composition and collaborative fulfilment across multiple merchant‑side agents.

The AHA protocol removes historic pain‑points stemming from incompatibility, complex adaptation processes and ambiguous accountability across heterogeneous hardware and brand‑specific AI services, laying standardised groundwork for large‑scale cross‑industry collaboration. Natural‑language user requests trigger end‑to‑end closed‑loop workflows covering cross‑agent collaboration, secure fulfilment and final transaction completion. The protocol enables efficient interoperability between agents originating from different vendors, enforcing domain‑specific authorisation and data‑isolation safeguards to maintain trusted operational boundaries. These technical underpinnings have already powered existing cross‑terminal collaborative deployments between Alipay and hardware‑model partners.

Alipay will keep building industrial‑grade intelligent‑upgrading infrastructure, linking service supply, consumer requirements and commercial fulfilment across end‑to‑end value chains. Ongoing work will advance real‑world AI deployment capable of task execution, transaction processing and sustainable commercial operation alongside industry collaborators.