Alibaba's AI shopping chatbot Qwen buckled under overwhelming demand during a Spring Festival coupon campaign, forcing the e-commerce giant to pause coupon issuance and ask shoppers for patience.
The company launched the promotional push on Friday as part of a 3 billion yuan ($433 million) holiday initiative to showcase Qwen's commerce capabilities.
Within nine hours, the chatbot received over 10 million purchase requests, completely overwhelming its systems.
By Sunday, Qwen had stopped fulfilling orders and issued automated replies stating no further credits could be given due to excessive demand. The chatbot's official Weibo account posted a plea for patience, acknowledging the system overload.
"Everyone's enthusiasm for experiencing AI shopping is too high," Qwen stated in a Weibo post verified by Reuters. "Currently there are too many participants in 'Qwen free order', we are working tirelessly to maintain the campaign's experience."
Alibaba confirmed that existing coupons remain valid through February 28, giving customers additional time to redeem them once service stabilizes. The campaign represents phase one of the company's broader holiday push to bring users onto its Qwen platform.
The technical strain comes just weeks after Alibaba released an updated Qwen mobile app in January 2026. The app, which links to services like Taobao and Alipay, allows users to complete tasks through conversational prompts rather than traditional screen navigation.
This campaign marks the first public test of Alibaba's "Agentic AI" strategy, which aims to position Qwen as the primary interface for accessing all of Alibaba's apps and products. The vision parallels Google's integration of Gemini across its service ecosystem.
The overwhelming response validates consumer interest in AI-powered shopping but exposes infrastructure gaps in Alibaba's ambitious commerce transformation.
The company now faces the challenge of scaling backend systems to match the demonstrated demand, even as it continues to invest in AI retail innovations like its interactive installation in Milan for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
