Siri on Mac to Speak Chinese via Alibaba's Qwen AI

Apple has published a user guide stating that Mac owners in China can connect Alibaba's Qwen AI service to the digital assistant Siri and the text processing feature Writing Tools. According to Reuters, this agreement with Alibaba, designed specifically for Mac, may help Apple compete in the Chinese AI PC market, where the company is losing market share to local manufacturers such as Lenovo, which promotes AI features from domestic developers. The Qwen family of generative AI models from Alibaba can create text and generate images, as well as analyze documents, photos, and other materials upon user request. According to Apple's updated Chinese-language guide, users who have given consent can use Qwen AI models through Siri to get more detailed answers to some queries, including analysis of photos and documents. The Writing Tools feature will also be able to use Qwen AI models to generate text or images based on descriptions. The extension is available for Mac computers running macOS 26.6 or later. To use it, users must activate the extension and log in to a Qwen account. According to Omdia, Mac shipments in mainland China fell 9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, to about 800,000 units. As a result, Apple's share of the Chinese PC market fell to 9%, compared with 31% for Lenovo, which made its personal AI agent Tianxi central to its AI PC strategy, and 16% for Huawei, which is developing AI features for its entire HarmonyOS ecosystem.