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Apple has released a guide detailing how Chinese Mac users can connect Alibaba's Qwen artificial intelligence service to the company's Siri digital assistant and Writing Tools feature. This development could bolster Apple's position in China's AI PC market, where the company has been experiencing a decline in market share as local manufacturers like Lenovo introduce AI-driven features. The guide outlines several key points:

Qwen is Alibaba's suite of generative AI models capable of generating text, images, and analyzing various types of data based on user prompts. Through the guide, Apple users in China can utilize Qwen via Siri for more comprehensive responses to certain queries, including document and photo analysis. Additionally, Writing Tools can leverage Qwen to generate text or images from user descriptions.

This extension is available for Macs running macOS 26.6 or later, provided they meet certain China-specific requirements. To use the extension, users must activate it and log into a Qwen account.

Alibaba has stipulated that the materials obtained through the extension will not be used to train or enhance their AI models. Mac shipments in mainland China declined by 9% year-over-year in the first quarter, totaling around 800,000 units, giving Apple a 9% share of the PC market, compared to Lenovo's 31% and Huawei's 16%. Lenovo has positioned its Tianxi personal AI agent as a cornerstone of its AI-PC strategy, while Huawei is integrating AI capabilities throughout its HarmonyOS ecosystem.

By linking Qwen to Siri and Writing Tools, Apple offers a compliant solution for offering advanced document, image, and content creation functions on Macs while maintaining control over the user interface. For Alibaba, this integration provides a broader reach for Qwen, extending its presence beyond Alibaba's applications and cloud services.

Alibaba has announced plans to incorporate Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4-trillion-parameter model, into Apple's built-in software for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro in China, although the guide focuses exclusively on Mac compatibility. The guide does not specify which exact Qwen model will be utilized on the Mac.