Alibaba’s Qwen App released a major update on August 7, bundling office assistant, scheduled tasks and flagship Qwen3.8-MAX model access into a single version of the consumer AI app. For the first time, the release carries an explicit pricing signal: core features stay free, but the new office assistant will run on a quota that requires payment once exhausted. The pattern follows ByteDance’s Doubao, which launched a three-tier subscription ranging from 68 to 500 yuan per month in June. Tencent followed with personal tiers between 99 and 999 yuan, and Alibaba shipped a 98-yuan-per-month standard subscription for its corporate Qwen Office product on August 3. Qwen App was built as Alibaba’s AI-to-consumer flagship, integrated with Taobao, Alipay, Fliggy and Amap, and fronted a 30-billion-yuan New Year marketing campaign that pushed daily active users from 7 million to a peak of 73.5 million. After the campaign ended, DAU fell by nearly half, and per-user session time dropped from 6.3 minutes before the campaign to a low of about 3 minutes after, a 51% decline. Customer acquisition cost ran roughly 144 yuan per DAU, above ByteDance’s Doubao and Tencent’s Yuanbao. Internally, Qwen App collides with the Qwen Office product launched publicly