Alibaba Group said on Saturday, October 31, that it will integrate its Qwen AI model into Apple Intelligence for iPhone users in China, putting Qwen inside Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence. Testing starts in Apple's latest iOS developer beta on November 4, and the feature reaches Chinese users with the iOS 27.3 release in December.
Qwen will handle text and image understanding and content generation across the three Apple features. Siri can draw on Qwen's broader knowledge to answer requests, and users can ask questions about selected photos and documents.
In Writing Tools, a Compose with Qwen option can generate content on any topic, including images. Visual Intelligence adds an "Ask Qwen" option that can be launched from Camera Control, the Action button or Control Center.
Key facts
- 01Alibaba announced on October 31, 2026 that its Qwen model will be integrated into Apple Intelligence for users in China.
- 02Qwen testing starts in Apple's latest iOS developer beta on November 4; the public rollout comes with iOS 27.3 in December.
- 03Qwen will work inside Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, including a new "Ask Qwen" option.
- 04Alibaba said it will not use user requests or generated responses to train its models.
- 05Supported devices include iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 16 and later, iPhone Air and iPhone Duo.
The integration is opt-in. According to a statement Alibaba posted on its WeChat account, Apple asks for consent before any question, document or image is sent to Qwen, and users decide what information to share. They can sign in with Sign in with Apple or a Qwen account, and Alibaba said it will not use user requests or generated responses to train its models.
Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu said Qwen will work with Apple to deliver new AI-powered service experiences to users in China.
“Qwen will draw on Alibaba's deep AI capabilities to integrate deeply into the various experiences of Apple's ecosystem”— Eddie Wu Yongming, CEO of Alibaba Group
At launch, Qwen is available on iOS to users who buy an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone in China, or whose device location and Apple Account country or region are both set to China. Supported models are the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 16 and later, iPhone Air and iPhone Duo, with the device and Siri language set to English or Simplified Chinese. Apple said support for other platforms will follow once the necessary approvals are obtained.
Qwen arrives alongside Apple's own first wave of Apple Intelligence features in China: real-time translation, photo object removal, notification and email summaries, smart replies, and tools for rewriting, proofreading and summarizing text. Apple confirmed the December timing in a post on its China newsroom. Siri AI, the rebuilt assistant Apple showed at WWDC 2026, is not part of the China launch.
The deal follows a long regulatory path. Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence at its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2024, and the China launch lands about two years after the US debut. In July, China's cyberspace authority completed the filing of seven on-device generative AI services for smartphones, including Apple Intelligence, and earlier this month the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved Alibaba's AI models for integration into several Apple handsets, including the iPhone Duo.
Wang Xiaojie, an AI expert at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said it is the first time a top global consumer hardware maker has used a Chinese large model as the primary system-level AI backbone in the Chinese market. He called it a significant step in the commercial application of domestic large models.
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