Alipay launches AI Wallet & Token Pay for agentic commerce

Alipay has launched a full-stack artificial intelligence payment system, introducing AI Wallet and Token Pay to expand its payment products for consumers, businesses and AI developers.

The new services were presented to partners across sectors, including AI companies and retailers, as the Chinese payments platform adapts its infrastructure to support transactions initiated by software agents rather than by people using an app or website directly.

AI Wallet is designed for individual users who want to monitor and manage purchases made via AI agents. Available within the Alipay app, it lets users approve tasks before payment, track spending during use and review expenditure afterwards.

Token Pay targets AI model companies that need to charge for subscriptions, token top-ups and related transactions. Alipay described it as a single platform for handling those payment flows across international markets.

The launch builds on two earlier products in the company's AI payments push. One is Alipay AI Pay, a consumer tool that enables transactions through AI agents using voice commands. The other is an AI payment-processing product for businesses and developers that supports pay-per-use charging via a simplified integration process.

Cyril Han, Chief Executive of Ant Group, linked the move to broader changes in digital commerce.

"While the essence of commerce remains unchanged in the age of AI, the emergence of AI agents is reshaping everything. Drawing on 22 years of technological expertise and commercial know-how, Alipay is building a new generation of AI payment services to accelerate the growth of the agentic commerce ecosystem," Han said.

A central issue is trust in transactions carried out by software on behalf of users. To address that, Alipay launched, with partners, what it called China's first Agentic Commerce Trust Protocol, aimed at creating common standards between AI services and commercial platforms.

It also introduced an intelligent security system for AI payments to safeguard transactions initiated by AI agents. The announcement did not include detailed technical specifications, but positioned the system as part of the control framework for delegated payments.

Scale claims

Alipay said its AI payment products had reached 300 million transactions and that Alipay AI Pay had passed 100 million users earlier this year. It described the service as the first AI-native payment product globally to exceed that user threshold and said the broader system had become commercially established at scale.

Its tools now support a broad range of use cases in China, including AI agents built into retail apps and mini programmes used by companies such as Luckin Coffee; smart glasses from Rokid; consumer AI applications, including Alibaba's Qwen; OpenClaw-type agents; smart cockpit systems; AI development platforms such as Coze and Qoder; and businesses, including one-person companies.

Alipay also highlighted support for 95% of OpenClaw-like AI agents. That points to an effort to make its payments layer compatible with a wide range of agent formats as developers test systems that can search, order and pay with limited human intervention.

Partner tie-ups

At the same launch, AI model companies MiniMax and Stepfun announced collaborations with Alipay. The work will cover use cases including token top-ups, membership subscriptions and marketing campaigns.

"Payments play a crucial role in enabling tenfold growth in the AI industry. Together with Alipay, we will strengthen collaboration across multiple areas to accelerate the growth of AI commerce," said Weiqi Hu, Vice-President of MiniMax.

For AI companies, charging users and collecting recurring revenue has become a practical challenge as products shift from flat subscriptions to mixed models that include usage-based billing. Alipay is seeking to position its system as a way to handle both consumer authorisation and back-end settlement for those models.

Lin Zhu, General Manager of Alipay AI Payment Business at Ant Group, said the role of payments was changing as AI systems take on more of the commercial process.

"AI is redefining every layer of commerce. As AI agents begin helping people search for information, shop, order food, and even make money, payments are no longer just the 'final step' - they are becoming a capability embedded from the very beginning. Only when trusted transactions, seamless payments and secure controls are all in place can agentic commerce truly take off," Zhu said.

Alipay also said it would use its Tap smart devices to connect online and offline transactions through AI-based upgrades. It also introduced a support programme for individual AI developers, including token incentives and zero payment processing fees.