Alibaba launches agentic AI tool for businesses with Slack, Teams integration plans

<p>Chinese technology giant Alibaba on Tuesday released a new agentic artificial intelligence tool, Wukong, for enterprise customers, as the company restructures and faces rising competition.</p>
<p>The company told CNBC in a statement that Wukong allows businesses to manage multiple agents through a single interface, while offering "enterprise-grade security infrastructure."</p>
<p>The platform, which is still in its invitation-only testing phase, will be able to manage agents handling tasks such as document editing, approvals, meeting transcription, and research. Unlike chatbots that respond to prompts, AI agents can take proactive actions, often requiring broader access to company data and systems, raising privacy and security concerns.</p>
<p>Named after the Monkey King character from the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West", Wukong is available as a standalone desktop application or through DingTalk, a cloud-based communications platform similar to <a href="/quotes/CRM/">Salesforce</a>'s Slack.</p>
<p>Besides DingTalk, which has over 20 million corporate users, Alibaba outlined plans to connect Wukong with other messaging platforms, including Slack, <a href="/quotes/MSFT/">Microsoft</a> Teams and <a href="/quotes/700-HK/">Tencent</a>'s WeChat, expanding access to mobile devices.</p>
<p>Wukong will also be progressively integrated into Alibaba's broader suite of e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Alipay.</p>
<p>Alibaba is the latest company to roll out AI agents. Rival <a href="/quotes/700-HK/">Tencent</a> and startups such as <a href="/quotes/undefined/">Zhipu AI</a> have raced to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/12/china-openclaw-ai-agent-adoption-tech-companies-government-support-lobster-shrimp.html">launch similar products</a> built on OpenClaw, an open-source agentic platform developed by Peter Steinberger, who has since joined Sam Altman's OpenAI.</p>
<p>The announcement of Alibaba's new enterprise tool comes at a pivotal moment for the Hangzhou-based company founded by billionaire Jack Ma.</p>
<p>Wukong was unveiled a day after the company announced a reorganization, with the AI agent platform falling under its new Alibaba Token Hub business group.</p>
<p>Besides Wukong, the new business group — which will focus on developing and applying AI tokens — will oversee existing Alibaba units Tongyi Laboratory, MaaS Business Line, Qwen and AI Innovation, and will be led by Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu.</p>
<p>AI tokens refer to units of data or value used within AI systems, including inputs, outputs or usage tied to computing.</p>
<p>In an internal memo published Monday on Alizila, the company's news portal, Wu described the changes as a "historic opportunity" as the company stands at the "threshold of an [artificial general intelligence] inflection point."</p>
<h2><a href=""/>Leadership exits</h2>
<p>The shakeup also follows the departure of key personnel involved in developing Alibaba's <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/17/china-alibaba-qwen-ai-agent-latest-model.html">popular agentic chatbot Qwen</a>.</p>
<p>On March 4, Lin Junyang, the key technical lead behind Qwen, alluded to his departure from the company in a cryptic post on X, writing "bye my beloved qwen."</p>
<p>A day later, Alibaba CEO Wu confirmed Lin's departure in an internal staff memo reviewed by CNBC, saying that the company has accepted "Lin Junyang's resignation and we sincerely thank him for his contributions during his time with us."</p>
<p>Lin's resignation marked the third senior departure this year from the Qwen team, following Yu Bowen and Hui Binyuan, who headed post-training and coding, respectively, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/head-alibabas-qwen-ai-division-resigns-2026-03-04/">Reuters</a>.</p>
<p><a href="/quotes/BABA/">Alibaba's</a> Hong Kong-listed shares closed 0.45% higher Tuesday to 134.6 Hong Kong dollars ($17.17) following the announcement of Wukong. The company is scheduled to announce its <a href="https://www.alibabagroup.com/en-US/document-1965937613500055552">fourth-quarter 2025 earnings</a> on Thursday.</p>
<p>— CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.</p>