TECH

AI Agents to Reshape Global White-Collar Economy, Alibaba Chairman Says

Published: Mar. 24, 2026 12:13 p.m. GMT+8

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Joe Tsai. Photo: VCG

Artificial intelligence (AI) agents will reshape the global white-collar economy, potentially bringing in nearly $50 trillion in commercial value a year, as they evolve from personal assistants into autonomous virtual employees, Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai said.

The bold projection underscores Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s aggressive push to integrate advanced AI capabilities into its business offerings to fuel its cloud computing growth, even as the Chinese tech giant navigates a recent exodus of top talent from its proprietary large language model team.

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AI agents could generate nearly $50 trillion in annual commercial value as they evolve into autonomous virtual employees, according to Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai.
Alibaba and Siemens deepened their partnership to deliver CAE capabilities on Alibaba Cloud for the Chinese market.
Despite recent leadership departures in Alibaba’s AI team, the company continues investing heavily in cloud and AI platforms to maintain its industry edge.

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Who’s Who

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.: Alibaba Group, led by Chairman Joe Tsai, is aggressively integrating AI into its business to boost cloud computing growth. Despite recent talent loss from its large language model team, Alibaba is heavily investing in AI, aiming to generate nearly $50 trillion in annual commercial value. They're developing AI agents for various tasks and deepening partnerships, such as with Siemens, to expand AI's application.

Siemens AG: Siemens AG is a German conglomerate whose President and CEO is Roland Busch. The company is deploying industrial AI agents on production floors to identify and remedy production line failures. Siemens also deepened its partnership with Alibaba Cloud, integrating its simulation portfolio with Alibaba's computing infrastructure to provide computer-aided engineering capabilities in China.

Alibaba Cloud: Alibaba Cloud is a key part of Alibaba Group's strategy to integrate advanced AI into its business and stimulate cloud computing growth. It provides massive computing resources for clients utilizing Alibaba's AI models. Alibaba Cloud recently deepened its partnership with Siemens to offer computer-aided engineering capabilities in China and launched CoPaw, an open-source desktop agent platform.

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What Happened When

Feb. 28, 2026：: Alibaba Cloud launched the open-source desktop agent platform CoPaw, enabling users to deploy agents locally or in the cloud and to connect to local models and exclusive messaging applications.

March 4, 2026：: Lin Junyang, head of Alibaba's Qwen large language model research and development team, and several key technical staff resigned, causing a talent shock within the Chinese AI industry.

March 23, 2026：: At the Siemens Real Meets Digital conference, Joe Tsai, Chairman of Alibaba, discussed the evolution and economic impact of AI agents. Siemens AG President and CEO Roland Busch described the deployment of industrial AI agents on production floors. On the same day, Siemens and Alibaba Cloud announced a deepened partnership to integrate Siemens’ simulation portfolio with Alibaba’s computing infrastructure for computer-aided engineering capabilities in China.

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