Ant Group is preparing to turn Alipay from a payments app into an AI services platform, but the harder test is whether Beijing will allow the old super app to become powerful again.
Alipay was never just a wallet. For years it was the front door to Jack Ma's fintech empire, a place where more than a billion users could pay, borrow, invest, insure, book, shop and move through daily life without leaving Ant Group's orbit. Now Bloomberg reports that Ant is preparing a major overhaul of the app, and the timing is not accidental.
The company has spent the years since its blocked 2020 IPO shrinking the parts of itself regulators disliked and building up the parts Beijing now wants to see. Payments are still the anchor. AI is becoming the pitch. That is a very different story from the one Ant wanted to tell investors six years ago, when it was preparing what would have been a $34.5 billion listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong at a valuation of about $313 billion.
That deal was stopped at the last minute after Ma criticized Chinese financial regulators. The aftermath was not symbolic. Ant was pushed into a financial holding company structure, its lending businesses Huabei and Jiebei were separated more clearly from Alipay's wider services, and Chinese regulators later fined the company 7.12 billion yuan, roughly $985 million, for violations tied to payments, consumer protection and corporate governance. The old Ant could grow first and negotiate later. That version of the company is gone.
The new Alipay effort appears to be built around a simpler argument: an app that already handles payments can also become the place where users ask for services. Ant has been moving in that direction for more than a year. At its Inclusion Conference in Shanghai in 2024, the company introduced Zhixiaobao, an AI life assistant designed to help users order meals, book tickets, hail taxis and reach other Alipay functions. It also showed AI tools for merchants, insurers and healthcare services.
That healthcare push has become one of the clearest examples of where Ant is trying to go. CNBC reported in 2025 that Ant was doubling down on healthcare with an AI app called AQ, while company materials said the service connects users with hospitals and doctors. Later reports said AQ had reached 100 million users after public testing began in September 2024. A health app is not the same as a payment button. It brings Ant closer to advice, triage and personal data, which is exactly where the opportunity and the risk sit together.
Ant has also been spending like a company that knows the app redesign needs more than a new interface. Reuters reported that Ant invested 23.45 billion yuan, or about $3.26 billion, in research and development in 2024, up 10.7% from the previous year. The company has released Ling-Plus and Ling-Lite large language models, and it has used its Bailing model across services for healthcare, finance and merchants.
This is not a small feature launch. It is an attempt to change the center of gravity inside one of China's most important consumer platforms. If Alipay becomes the place where users ask an agent to compare a financial product, find a doctor, settle a bill and complete a merchant transaction, Ant will have found a way to make AI feel practical rather than theatrical.
The public market question has not disappeared
The restructuring around Ant matters because the app overhaul is not happening in isolation. The Wall Street Journal reported that Ant moved to create independent boards for several units, including Ant International, OceanBase and Ant Digital Technologies. Reuters also reported leadership changes that put Cyril Han on track to become chief executive in March 2025, with Eric Jing remaining chairman. These are the kinds of boring governance details that investors usually care about more than users do.
They also explain why every Alipay move is read through the old IPO story. Ant has denied immediate listing plans before, including a December 2024 statement pushing back against social media rumors of a backdoor listing. But a company can deny a near-term IPO and still work toward a structure that makes one possible later. Independent units, cleaner governance and AI-led growth all make Ant easier to value than the pre-crackdown sprawl regulators took apart.
The problem is that Alipay's biggest advantage is also what made Beijing nervous. A platform with more than a billion users is useful because it bundles demand, data and transactions. It becomes politically sensitive for the same reason. The more capable its AI layer becomes, the more it will touch regulated areas such as lending, insurance, investment guidance and medical services.
That is why Ant's next phase will be watched well beyond China. Many founders have talked about turning payments, commerce and AI into one daily operating system for consumers. Ant already has the user habit and the merchant network. What it does not have is a free hand.
If the Alipay overhaul works, Ant will show that a heavily regulated fintech platform can still find growth by making AI useful inside services people already use. If it moves too quickly, it will remind Beijing why the 2020 crackdown happened in the first place. That balance, more than any new button inside the app, is the real product Ant is trying to build.
Also read: Meta says its old open AI strategy no longer works • SEBI is preparing to make AI part of market regulation • AI financing is now large enough to move public markets
