• Alibaba introduces an AI chat assistant in its Quark app.
• The feature is powered by the company's latest Qwen3 models and offers enhanced reasoning, comprehension, and task execution capabilities.
• BABA shares have declined this month but are still up about 97% year-to-date.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on Thursday introduced advanced AI chat features to its Quark app, which originally launched as a browser but was repositioned earlier this year as the company's flagship consumer platform. 

The move underscores the Chinese tech giant's broader play targeting individual users, after previously focusing its AI efforts primarily on enterprise clients.

Alibaba's U.S.-listed shares rose 1.9% in early premarket trading; the company's Hong Kong stock closed 1.7% up on Thursday.

Quark's new chat feature lets users interact through text or voice, and is powered by Alibaba's latest Qwen3 models. It offers enhanced reasoning, comprehension, and task execution capabilities, the company said.

The app had 6.96 million monthly active users in September, Reuters reported, citing figures from AI product tracker Aicpb. Market leader ByteDance's Doubao had 150 million monthly active users, while DeepSeek had 73.4 million, and Tencent followed with 64.2 million.

Alibaba has moved swiftly in launching new AI features and upgrades to its large language models, bolstering investor confidence and helping its stock nearly double in value this year.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for BABA was 'bearish,' unchanged from the previous day. The stock, down about 13% from its recent record high earlier this month, remains up 97% so far this year.

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