Tmall Genie

Tmall Genie is Alibaba's smart speaker product, launched in 2017 and co-founded by Li Yong among others . It moved over 30 million units in its first three years, outselling Baidu and Xiaomi's competing speakers at the time, though it reportedly fell short of Alibaba's larger ambition to become a personal AI assistant and new retail entry point for young consumers . A key insight from its operations was that children drove most of the voice interactions, a pattern that later influenced Li Yong's pivot to children's AI hardware—he now runs Haivivi, maker of the AI plush-toy companion BubblePal . The product line has since expanded; as of late 2025, Tmall Genie-branded smart interactive story machines were ranking on e-commerce bestseller lists alongside other AI toys .