Ant International has launched Alipay+ Voyager, an AI travel companion integrated into its digital wallets, a move that takes the company beyond payments and gives travelers more reasons to stay within its wallet ecosystem.

Its OTA launch partners include Agoda, Fliggy and Trip.com. Also onboard are three of Asia’s biggest mobile wallets, Alipay (Chinese mainland), AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR, China) and GCash (the Philippines) ahead of the summer travel peak. It will roll out to more Alipay+ payment partners throughout 2025.

As an indication of its potential scale, Alipay+, started as a cross-border payment technology solution, is now helping 36 leading e-wallets and payment apps with 1.7 billion consumer accounts connect to over 100 million merchants.

Alipay+ Voyager combines Ant International’s agentic AI capabilities with the galaxy of cross-border travel services offered by OTA partners and 100 million global merchants in Alipay+’s partner ecosystem.

Through its one single AI interface embedded in e-wallets and super apps, Alipay+ Voyager assists travellers, via text or voice in their local language, to complete itinerary planning, booking, and purchasing in-destination merchant offerings with a seamless flow.

The Alipay+ Wallet Tech team has been working with e-wallet partners in emerging markets to develop payment, security and growth capabilities and solutions since 2015. Today, the team plans to further build out other agentic AI suites for different industries on Alipay+ GenAI Cockpit, its main AI platform for fintechs.

Alipay+ clearly has its eye on the growing online travel market, being shaped by mobile and driven by younger travellers who increasingly favour unique, hyperlocal experiences, using mobile-first, all-in-one solutions to uncover their best options.

Alipay+ Voyager’s features include:

• Intelligent end-to-end assistance from one single hub in familiar wallets: research, decision, and action support before, during and after the trip
• Real-time global-to-local connections: seamless transitioning to local services like ride-hailing, public transport, shopping, dining and sightseeing;
• Purposeful, forward-looking curation: Voyager AI intuitively understands a user’s preferences, proactively solves problems when there are issues such as flight delays or bad weather, and surfaces hyper-relevant options in real-time before a traveller even asks, all within their home e-wallet;
• A new growth gateway for merchants and OTAs: captures multiple core markets through one easy deployment across the largest regional and global e-wallets.

“Travellers today are using more tech to enhance their trips, and there is a need for the industry to adapt and meet these new and emerging expectations,” said Douglas Feagin, President of Ant International.

“By integrating a proactive, always-on AI travel companion within digital wallets that consumers already use frequently, we’re empowering travel and wallet partners with new opportunities to engage travellers in a more relevant, personalised way, through every step of their journey.”

Gil Hazan, Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, Agoda, said:

“At Agoda, we are committed to making travel more accessible and seamless for everyone. By integrating our extensive supply network as one of Asia’s leading online travel platforms with Alipay+ Voyager’s expansive wallet partnerships, we can offer travellers a more convenient and personalized booking experience. This collaboration enables us to reach a broader audience and provide tailored travel solutions that cater to the diverse needs of today’s travellers.”