Hearing from a senior Alibaba employee on the current round of layoffs:

Gaode (mapping/local services) and Fliggy (travel booking, Alibaba's answer to Ctrip) are the hardest hit. AI-driven cuts are replacing headcount across both units. Taotian (Taobao/Tmall core e-commerce) is somewhat better — for now — but post-tooling optimization will thin ranks there too. Developer roles are facing major compression across the group.

This tracks with posts on Maimai (China's workplace social network) this week reporting 40%+ cuts at Fliggy. In the past 18 months, China's top five internet companies have cut a combined 130,000+ jobs while increasing AI engineer hiring by 47%.

There's plenty of reporting on AI replacing jobs at Meta and Google. Much less on how it's actually playing out inside Chinese big tech — which roles, which tools, how fast.