What happened
Alibaba’s Amap navigation app introduced the AI‑based Street Stars , which ranks venues using foot‑traffic, movement patterns and verified feedback. The feature, now live in 269 Chinese cities, lifted sales for merchants listed in 2025 by an average of 424 % year‑on‑year and by 159 % for those in the “top picks” category. To mark the feature’s first anniversary, Amap launched Flying Street View 2.0, powered by ABot‑Earth 0.7 – described as the world’s first native 3D urban world model – allowing users to explore destinations in an interactive 3D environment. The update also includes the FantasyWorld simulation platform and a robot‑integration framework that unifies a robot’s “feet, hands, brain, central nervous system and motor nerves.” Amap has begun exporting the AI‑driven discovery tools, debuting a Singapore Street Stars edition in partnership with the Singapore Tourism Board. The app now serves roughly 996 million monthly active users, according to Alibaba’s January disclosure.
Alibaba’s Amap app added the Street Stars recommendation guide, which uses AI to analyze massive user data sets—including foot traffic, movement patterns and verified feedback—to rank venues. The guide now covers 269 Chinese cities and has generated significant sales lifts for featured merchants, with 2025‑listed businesses reporting an average 424 % increase in orders year‑on‑year.
To celebrate the ’s first anniversary, Amap released Flying Street View 2.0, powered by the ABot‑Earth 0.7 world model. The system creates a native 3D urban environment that lets users preview locations such as theatre seats and shopping malls in an interactive format.
Alibaba highlighted additional AI assets supporting the revamp: the FantasyWorld simulation platform for training AI systems, and a robot‑integration framework that unifies a robot’s sensory and motor components into a single architecture. These developments position Amap as a testing ground for Alibaba’s broader AI strategy.
Amap has begun exporting its AI‑driven discovery tools, launching a Singapore Street Stars edition in collaboration with the Singapore Tourism Board. The international rollout features seven themed rankings covering 104 attractions and lifestyle venues.
Alibaba disclosed that Amap serves roughly 996 million monthly active users, a figure that dwarfs Meituan’s 512 million MAUs reported by QuestMobile in early 2026. The scale of Amap’s user base underpins its ability to collect the data needed for AI‑powered recommendations.
Why it matters
The rollout demonstrates how a major Chinese tech firm is leveraging AI to reshape local‑service discovery, directly challenging Meituan’s market lead. By providing hyper‑specific, data‑rich rankings, Amap gives small merchants a new customer‑acquisition channel, as illustrated by a Shanghai noodle shop that saw a 50‑60 % order surge after being listed. The AI‑driven 3D view and world‑model simulations signal Alibaba’s broader ambition to embed spatial intelligence across its ecosystem, potentially influencing e‑commerce, logistics and robotics. The move also highlights the competitive pressure on existing platforms to adopt more sophisticated AI recommendation engines, while raising questions about data privacy, and the completeness of Amap’s transaction funnel, which still drives users to Meituan for final purchases.
The AI‑enhanced rankings give small merchants a powerful, data‑driven channel to attract customers, reducing reliance on traditional platforms like Meituan. This could shift market share in China’s massive local‑services sector, where Meituan has long been dominant.
Flying Street View 2.0 showcases Alibaba’s progress in spatial AI and world‑model construction, technologies that could be repurposed for e‑commerce, logistics, autonomous navigation and virtual tourism, expanding Alibaba’s AI ecosystem beyond text‑centric models.
The integration of robotics components signals Alibaba’s intent to blend AI perception with physical actuation, potentially accelerating the development of delivery robots or in‑store automation that could further differentiate its services.
Exporting the Street Stars concept to Singapore indicates Alibaba’s ambition to apply its AI discovery tools internationally, testing the model in a regulated market and gathering cross‑border data that could refine its algorithms.
The reliance on extensive location and movement data raises privacy and competition concerns. Regulators may scrutinize how such data is collected, processed, and shared, especially given the competitive advantage it provides over rivals.
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What to watch next
Key indicators to monitor include Amap’s monthly active user growth, merchant adoption rates for Street Stars, and any expansion of the 3D view to additional cities or overseas markets. Observers should watch how Meituan and other rivals respond—whether they introduce comparable AI ranking tools or integrate deeper transaction capabilities into Amap. Regulatory scrutiny over the use of location and foot‑traffic data, as well as the impact of Amap’s AI models on competition and consumer choice, will also be important. Finally, the commercial viability of Alibaba’s robot‑integration framework and its potential rollout beyond internal testing merit attention.
Growth in Amap’s monthly active users and the rate at which merchants adopt the Street Stars rankings will indicate the commercial traction of the AI features.
Responses from Meituan and other local‑service platforms—such as the introduction of comparable AI recommendation systems or enhancements to their transaction funnels—will shape the competitive landscape.
Regulatory actions concerning data privacy, , and the use of location data for commercial purposes could affect the rollout and scalability of Amap’s AI tools.
Further international deployments of Street Stars or Flying Street View, especially in markets with stricter data protection regimes, will test Alibaba’s ability to adapt its AI models globally.
The practical deployment of Amap’s robot‑integration framework beyond internal testing, including any partnerships with logistics or retail firms, will reveal the broader impact of Alibaba’s embodied AI strategy.