Ant Group has acquired Haodf, a leading healthcare platform specializing in online doctor consultations, and announced plans to drive AI-powered healthcare innovations. Ant Group President Cyril Han and Haodf.com Founder Hang Wang revealed that these efforts aim to enhance the efficiency of 280,000 doctors on the Haodf platform and improve the healthcare experience for 800 million users on the Alipay super app. At Haodf.com’s annual conference in Shanghai, they introduced the AI Doctor Assistant, a tool designed to support doctors in patient education and medical record management.
Cyril Han, President of Ant Group, shared at the 2025 Haodf Conference in Shanghai: “Making healthcare services more accessible has been a core focus for Ant Group. Alipay has supported the digital transformation of the healthcare sector for over a decade, and this long-term partnership will benefit both the 280,000 doctors on Haodf.com and Alipay’s 800 million healthcare users.” Hang Wang, Founder of Haodf.com, added, “With a shared mission, Haodf.com will collaborate with Ant Group to drive innovation in AI-powered healthcare services.”
Founded in 2006, Haodf.com has pioneered online medical consultations. As of January 2025, the platform has 280,000 verified doctors who have collectively served over 100 million patients.
Alipay, which has evolved from a trusted e-wallet to an all-in-one digital platform, has been at the forefront of China’s healthcare digital transformation. Since launching online hospital appointment booking in 2014, Alipay has helped more than 800 million healthcare users access services from over 3,600 hospitals. In September 2024, Ant Group launched the AI Healthcare Manager within the Alipay app, connecting users to over 30 services, such as doctor mapping, medical report interpretation, hospital navigation, and personalized medical advice.
This acquisition brings together complementary strengths: Haodf.com can benefit from Alipay’s user base, platform, and AI capabilities to reduce costs and improve service quality, while Haodf.com’s network of doctors enriches Alipay’s healthcare ecosystem, providing users with smarter, more comprehensive medical services.
The AI Doctor Assistant, introduced at the conference, supports doctors by assisting with patient education and medical record management. It acts as a digital twin of the doctor, offering 24/7 support for consultations and answering common healthcare questions with professional accuracy. A similar service is already available on Alipay’s AI Healthcare Manager, where AI agents assist doctors in delivering online consultations that are ten times more efficient than traditional in-person visits. The Assistant has also been deployed on Haodf.com, creating personalized digital twins for nearly 1,000 doctors.
The AI Doctor Assistant’s medical record management features, powered by Ant Group’s BaiLing Foundation Model, allow doctors to store records with a simple photo, retrieve them using voice commands, and organize them automatically. These tools are already being used by an initial group of 500 doctors on the Haodf.com platform.
Junjie Zhang, Vice President of Alipay and General Manager of Alipay’s Digital Healthcare Business Unit, stated, “Alipay and Haodf.com will continue to support doctors for the long term, working together to deliver improved healthcare services to patients.”
Hang Wang also shared plans for ongoing collaboration to continually upgrade the AI Doctor Assistant, making it an increasingly valuable tool for doctors.
In recent years, Ant Group has significantly increased its investment in AI and technology. According to its latest ESG report, the company invested RMB 21.19 billion (USD 2.9 billion) in R&D in 2023. As of November 2024, Ant Group had filed a total of 34,576 patents globally, with invention patents accounting for 97% of the total.
