Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi merges Alipay business group, digital payments group, and Zhima Credit into a single Alipay business group

By 强调Next | September 21, 2025

On September 21, Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi issued an all-staff letter announcing the merger of the Alipay Business Group, Digital Payment Business Group, and Sesame Credit Business Unit into a new, unified Alipay Business Group. Wu Minzhi has been appointed President of the new group, while retaining her role as Ant Group's Chief People Officer.

This marks the second—and opposite—answer Ant has given to the question: "Who should be responsible for a single transaction?"

In December 2024, Ant had just split Digital Payment and Alipay into two separate business groups, each with its own rotating president. Twenty-one months later, the two "flywheels" are being recombined, with Sesame Credit now added to the mix.

On the surface, this is an organizational contraction. At its core, it reflects Ant's judgment: as AI begins to complete the entire "selection—order—payment" chain for users, the entry point, decision-making, payment, and credit components of a transaction can no longer be optimized by separate teams. One person must now take full responsibility for the entire AI-driven transaction.

Two Different Transaction Assumptions Behind Split and Merge

The logic behind the December 2024 split was clear:

• Digital Payment Business Group: Held the payment license entity and online/offline payment capabilities, tasked with deepening payment products and defending the payment foundation.
• Alipay Business Group: Comprised the App, advertising, digital livelihood services, travel, and hospitality businesses, tasked with growing user engagement and monetization.

By September 2025, this division was further formalized at the operating entity level:

• The payment license entity was renamed "Alipay Payment Technology Co., Ltd."
• The App operating entity was renamed "Alipay (Hangzhou) Digital Services Technology Co., Ltd."

One entity managed "Tap to Pay" and AI payments; the other managed the App and service digitalization.

This architecture was predicated on the mobile internet era's assumption that transactions could naturally be segmented: users compared and selected within the App, while payment handled only the final confirmation and settlement. Platforms pursued traffic and conversions; payment systems pursued stability and security. With inherently different performance metrics, separate management was more efficient.

AI has changed this premise.

Users no longer click through screens or compare prices one by one. Instead, they entrust their budget, preferences, and time to an intelligent agent, which completes search, comparison, and ordering. In this scenario, the payment system must verify not just account and amount, but also whether the execution exceeds the user's original authorization. Questions about who obtained what demand, what services merchants can provide, how much AI can spend, and who bears responsibility for transaction disputes can no longer be neatly divided among three separate organizations.

The December 2024 all-staff letter actually contained a hint: Ant mentioned it would explore innovative organizational forms for businesses like Sesame Credit. The current answer is direct: credit is being merged directly into the new Alipay Business Group, the two rotating president roles are eliminated, and ultimate responsibility is once again concentrated in a single person.

AI Pushes Payment from the Final Step Forward

When an intelligent agent places orders and makes payments on behalf of a user, it appears to be just one extra automatic click. In reality, it adds an entire new layer of verification that the payment system never needed before.

Traditional payment verifies whether the account and amount match. After AI-driven payment, the system must also answer:

• Is the executing entity the actual intelligent agent itself?
• Has it deviated from the user's original intent?
• Does the expenditure exceed the authorized limit?
• Do the product and order information match?
• In case of failure, refund, or dispute, how is responsibility traced?

The user's role also changes—from real-time transaction operator to goal-setter. Payment evolves from a checkout action into a risk control and credit system covering the entire transaction lifecycle.

Alipay's recently launched ACT (Agent Commerce Trust) protocol links together:

• Delegated authorization
• Commercial interaction
• Payment execution
• Trusted evidence storage

The AI wallet management agent handles authorization, tasks, and billing. Sesame Credit manages identity and履约 capability assessment. Merging Sesame Credit into the Alipay Business Group fills the highest-risk link in agent-based commerce: when machines act on behalf of humans, who defines the boundaries?

Product Progress Has Already Outpaced Organizational Structure

• June: Alipay launched its AI version, "Abao."
• July: Alipay launched its AI open platform.
• August: Alipay released its full-stack agent commerce infrastructure and the AHA cross-platform protocol, allowing merchants to convert existing pages, products, and service processes into Skills, MCPs, and other capabilities directly callable by intelligent agents.

According to official disclosures, "Abao" has completed AI adaptation for over 10,000 services, covering 5 mobile phone manufacturers and 16 automotive companies across platforms. AI payments have accumulated 300 million transactions.

These capabilities were previously scattered across three organizations:

• Front-end conversation and lifestyle services: Alipay Business Group
• Payment and settlement: Digital Payment Business Group
• Authorization, credit, and履约: Sesame Credit

With the three-in-one merger, budgets, personnel, and performance metrics are now aligned around a single transaction, eliminating the friction of cross-departmental coordination. In August, Han Xinyi predicted that agent commerce would experience explosive growth within the next 6 to 12 months. This merger, in essence, places the already-launched protocols, payment products, and merchant services into the hands of a single person before that window closes.

Alipay Can Give Up the Entry Point, But Not the Transaction

Alipay's real pressure does not come entirely from internal coordination costs, but from the world outside the App. In the age of intelligent agents, user needs may first enter through platforms like Qianwen, Honor YOYO, in-car systems, or AI glasses, which then call upon Alipay and merchant capabilities to complete tasks. Alipay can still process funds, but it may no longer own the entry point closest to the user.

This is why, in August, Alipay partnered with over 20 companies—including Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, Honor, BYD, and Geely—to build a multi-agent interconnection system. Once a merchant completes a single adaptation, its services can simultaneously enter mobile phones, in-car systems, glasses, and various large-model applications.

This represents a deliberate concession: Alipay is no longer fixated on keeping users within its own App. Instead, it accepts the reality that its entry point will be diluted, in exchange for remaining the settlement and credit infrastructure called upon in as many transactions as possible.

WeChat Pay is taking a different path, but aiming for the same position.

In June, WeChat Pay launched an "AI Exclusive Card" embedded within WeChat Wallet, initially connected to WorkBuddy. Users transfer funds separately, each transaction still requires phone confirmation, and the main account is strictly isolated from agent spending.

The two companies have chosen completely different product forms:

• Alipay: Merges credit and payment into the business front-end.
• WeChat Pay: Creates an isolated zone within the wallet.

But they are competing for the same thing: when users formally delegate the act of purchasing to AI, who defines the boundaries of authorization, and who bears responsibility for errors?

This competition will push payment companies from the end of the transaction chain toward the center of transaction rule-making. In the past, payment institutions primarily collected a channel fee after a transaction was completed. Now that intelligent agents are screening products for users, payment, membership, discounts, credit, and履约 data will collectively determine whether a merchant can be "seen" by AI and prioritized for invocation.

Alipay's simultaneous opening of 57 capabilities—including membership systems, merchant coupons, Sesame Credit, and rental services—has a clear purpose: to transform merchant operating elements into machine-readable, callable supply. Alipay may not need to own every AI entry point, but it must remain in as many transactions as possible. If third-party intelligent agents learn to bypass Alipay's merchant system and only call a payment channel at the final step, Alipay will be pushed back into the low-margin checkout role—precisely the outcome this organizational merger is designed to prevent.

Appointing Wu Minzhi Signals the Real Bottleneck is on the Supply Side

On the surface, Wu Minzhi's appointment appears to be a routine personnel arrangement during a consolidation period. She joined Ant in 2021 and currently serves as Chief People Officer, having led Ant's job grade system reform. She is intimately familiar with the internal mechanisms of reporting lines, grades, and performance evaluation.

However, looking at her longer career history, this is not simply a "management capability" appointment.

She joined Alibaba in 2000 and has served as:

• President of the International Trade Business Group
• President of the B2B Business Group
• Group Chief Customer Officer

In other words, she has managed merchant businesses and customer service systems. This experience is more telling than organizational coordination skills alone.

Abao is already online. What Alipay lacks is not an AI capable of conversation. The real bottleneck is transforming the services of hundreds of thousands of merchants into standardized, machine-readable supply:

• Can products and inventory be read in real-time?
• Can memberships and discounts be accurately calculated?
• Can orders be reliably fulfilled?
• Can after-sales responsibilities be traced clearly?

Following the August AI Ecosystem Conference, Alipay publicly stated that merchant onboarding demand is concentrated, with some development schedules already pushed into next year. Supply-side transformation has shifted from a strategic direction to a concrete delivery task.

With Wu Minzhi also serving as CPO, her next task is to redefine the authority and responsibility boundaries of the three former teams, bringing merchant onboarding speed, AI transaction success rates, and payment security into a single performance evaluation system.

Ant did not choose a purely technical background leader for this role. That itself is a signal: the product direction is largely set. The truly difficult work in the next phase involves the "dirty work" of merchant organization, service delivery, and internal execution.

After 300 Million Transactions, a Commercialization Bill is Still Due

Organizational consolidation can reduce coordination costs, but it cannot prove the revenue model for agent commerce.

Alipay's disclosed 300 million AI payments cover multiple types of intelligent agents and devices. It is an infrastructure-level achievement, but it does not mean that "Abao" itself has formed an active user base of comparable scale. In the last five months:

• Agent-based purchase task volume has grown 7x
• Average monthly user payment frequency has grown 3x

However, Alipay has never disclosed absolute scale, transaction value, or actual merchant-side revenue. These numbers are precisely the key to determining whether this business model is viable.

The 2024 split allowed Digital Payment and the Alipay App to each move faster independently. The 2026 merger brings user entry points, merchant supply, fund execution, and credit assurance back under a single organizational roof. Alipay's bet is clear: intelligent agents will consolidate all aspects of a transaction into a single task. The clearer the old organizational boundaries, the greater the internal friction left for AI.

The new Alipay Business Group now has a unified leader, along with infrastructure including protocols, wallets, and the merchant open platform. But what will truly determine whether this merger was worthwhile is whether these services can be repeatedly invoked by AI, ultimately generating orders for which merchants are willing to pay.

Organizational structures can be merged overnight. But the viability of a business model must be proven over the next year through invocation frequency and merchant renewal rates. That is the bill Alipay truly needs to collect—after 300 million transactions.