Starbucks and Alipay Ah Bao today launched a new AI-powered service – the “Coffee Alarm Clock” – for Chinese consumers. As Ah Bao, Alipay’s super AI agent, continues to expand its ecosystem and services, this partnership highlights the trend of brands, merchants, and developers leveraging AI to deliver smarter, more seamless and innovative consumer services.
Launched in June 2026, Ah Bao is a super service AI agent of Alipay. Through a simple voice command such as, “Buy me a Starbucks iced Americano at 10 a.m. every day,” the agent can remember the request, initiate the service at the scheduled time, and prompt the user to confirm and complete the payment. “It offers one-time setup and on-time execution, while ensuring the user remains in control throughout.” – according to the press release.
Users can set up their Coffee Alarm Clock in simple steps. First, open Alipay app, swipe right and tell Ah Bao “Buy me a Starbucks iced Americano at 10 a.m. every day”. Second, create a personalized name for the alarm clock and enable Alipay notifications in the app settings. Then wait for Ah Bao to execute the task every day.
To ensure accuracy, Alipay Ah Bao will ask follow-up questions to clarify the user’s needs if the request is incomplete or missing key information. From initiating the scheduled service to confirming the order and authorizing payment, the AI agent keeps the user in control at every critical step. Users can also cancel the task at any time.
“This updated feature of Alipay Ah Bao extends far beyond ordering coffee. It can manage a wide range of recurring daily tasks, such as scheduling rides in advance. The feature will be made available to more merchants and brands, enabling smarter, more seamless experiences for consumers in their daily lives. Additionally, Ah Bao introduced a new “Service” module at the top of its main page, allowing users to check and manage the status of their services.” – the company said.
Since its launch in June 2026, Alipay Ah Bao has offered more than 10,000 AI-powered everyday services, spanning more than a dozen categories including hospitality, dining, travel and pet care. Users can simply tell Ah Bao what they need through natural conversations and complete a wide range of everyday tasks — from paying utility bills and booking pet services to finding EV charging stations and even hailing a self-driving car.
Retail brands, including McDonald’s, KFC, Mixue Bingcheng, Luckin Coffee and Haidilao, have also integrated their services into Ah Bao, allowing consumers to place orders and make payments simply by chatting with the AI agent.
Powered by its AHA protocol, which enables cross-agent and cross-device interoperability, Alipay Ah Bao is rapidly connecting AI agents across a growing ecosystem of AI glasses, smartphones and cars, enabling them to access the AI-powered services available through Ah Bao. For instance, Xiaomi smartphone users can simply tell their AI agent Xiao AI what they need and Xiao AI will work with Ah Bao to handle a range of everyday services on their behalf.
Currently, Ah Bao is integrated with 5 leading smartphone brands, which together account for over 70% of the market, alongside 16 leading automakers.
For merchants and brands, a single integration with Alipay Ah Bao unlocks access to an audience beyond Alipay users, reaching consumers across a wide range of smart devices and platforms including smartphones, cars, AI glasses, and AI applications.
To encourage individual developers, merchants and independent software vendors (ISVs) to come up with more AI-powered life services and innovative consumer experiences, Alipay also announced it will invest 10 million RMB every year to establish an Emerging AI Agent Award to accelerate the growth of AI agent service ecosystem. With programming tools such as Alipay’s Qmuse, developers can build AI agents without writing code, using natural language to bring their ideas to life and win the opportunity to commercialize market-ready AI agent services through Ah Bao. Additionally, consumers with creative ideas for AI agents will also have a chance to win cash prizes.
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