Apple has released instructions for Mac users in mainland China to link Alibaba’s Qwen artificial intelligence service with Siri and the Writing Tools feature.
This Mac-focused setup may assist Apple in the competitive AI PC sector in China, where it has seen declining market share amid promotions of local AI capabilities by companies like Lenovo.
Qwen represents Alibaba’s collection of generative AI models capable of generating text and images, as well as examining documents and photos based on user inputs.
According to the updated guide in Chinese, opting in allows users to access Qwen through Siri for enhanced replies to certain queries, such as photo and document analysis. Writing Tools can also utilize the service for producing text or images from descriptions.
The feature applies to Macs with macOS 26.6 or newer, under specific rules for China. Activation and a Qwen account login are required.
The guide indicates that Alibaba is prohibited from using user materials to train its models.
In the first quarter, Mac shipments in mainland China dropped 9 percent year-over-year to roughly 800,000 units, resulting in a 9 percent market share, compared to Lenovo’s 31 percent and Huawei’s 16 percent, per Omdia data.
Lenovo emphasizes its Tianxi AI agent in its AI PC approach, and Huawei integrates AI across its HarmonyOS platform.
Connecting Qwen to Siri and Writing Tools provides Apple with a compliant method to deliver advanced functions for documents, images, and content creation while maintaining interface control.
For Alibaba, the link to Apple’s software could expand Qwen’s usage outside its own apps and services.
Alibaba announced plans to integrate Qwen into Apple Intelligence for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro in China, but the current guide addresses only Macs.
This week, Alibaba introduced Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4-trillion-parameter model claimed as its most advanced. The guide does not specify the Qwen model for the Mac feature.
