Ant Group's Alipay AI Pay reached 100 million users on 23 February 2026, making it what the company described as the world's first AI-native payment product to achieve that level of adoption. The milestone was reached during the Chinese New Year holiday season, a period of intense consumer spending activity in China when digital payment volumes across the country's payment platforms typically surge significantly, providing a demanding real-world test for new payment technologies at scale.
Between 5 and 11 February, coinciding with the peak of the Lunar New Year celebrations, AI Pay processed more than 120 million transactions initiated through voice commands and autonomous AI-agent interfaces. The volume of transactions completed through non-traditional payment interactions during that single seven-day window demonstrated the rapid pace at which Alipay's artificial intelligence payment layer was attracting active usage from its growing base of enrolled users, moving well beyond early-adopter numbers into territory that reflects genuine mainstream engagement with the product.
AI-NATIVE PAYMENTS AT UNPRECEDENTED SCALE
AI Pay distinguishes itself from conventional mobile payment applications by allowing users to initiate and complete transactions through conversational voice commands and autonomous AI-agent actions, rather than the tap-and-confirm flows that have characterised mobile payments since the emergence of QR-code and near-field communication payment systems. In the AI Pay model, the artificial intelligence layer drives the entire transaction experience from the point of intent recognition through to payment confirmation and settlement, without requiring the user to navigate a conventional graphical interface. The distinction between a product built natively around AI interaction and a traditional payment app with AI features layered on top is significant from both a product design and a regulatory classification perspective.
Reaching 100 million users at this level of AI-native integration places AI Pay at a scale that no comparable product in the global payments industry has previously achieved, according to Ant Group's characterisation of the milestone. The speed of adoption reflects both Alipay's enormous existing installed base in China — where it operates alongside WeChat Pay as one of the country's two dominant consumer payment platforms — and the particular appeal of voice and agent-driven payment interactions during a holiday period characterised by high-frequency, relatively small-value transactions in retail, food service, travel and red envelope gifting contexts. These use cases are well suited to voice-initiated commands, where the efficiency gains over manual navigation are most immediately apparent to users.
AQ HEALTH APP ALSO HITS 100 MILLION USERS
During the same holiday period, Ant Group's AI-powered health application AQ also crossed the 100 million user threshold, with the company describing AQ as the world's largest AI-native health application. AQ offers users health management services driven by artificial intelligence, and its simultaneous attainment of the 100 million user milestone alongside AI Pay illustrates the breadth of Ant Group's push to embed AI-native product experiences across multiple consumer verticals beyond its core payments infrastructure. Health services, given the sensitivity and complexity of medical information, represent a particularly consequential domain for AI-native product development, and the scale of AQ's user base positions Ant Group at the forefront of AI-driven digital health in the world's most populous country.
Ant Group reported the figures through fintech-focused media, with the user counts for both AI Pay and AQ cited as cumulative totals as of 23 February 2026. The dual milestones during Chinese New Year represent a significant data point in the competitive landscape for AI-integrated consumer financial and health applications globally, where major technology platforms from China, the United States and elsewhere are actively racing to establish leadership positions in AI-native products. For Ant Group, the figures provide a public demonstration of the commercial momentum building behind its AI strategy and the ability of its technology infrastructure to support both products simultaneously at nine-figure user volumes.