Ant Group Officially Acquires Haodf Online to Advance 'AI + Healthcare' Integration

Today (January 11), at the 2025 China Good Doctor Summit held in Shanghai, Ant Group officially announced its partnership with Haodf Online. With this, the acquisition between the “national-level APP” and the “pioneer of internet healthcare” has finally been settled.

As one of the pioneers of internet medical services, Haodf Online’s search for new investors over the past year or so has sparked considerable speculation within the industry. As a technology company with extensive penetration into various aspects of daily life, Ant Group’s moves in the digital health and healthcare sector have also drawn significant attention from all quarters.

“What is Ant Group’s ultimate goal in acquiring Haodf?” This question was raised by many industry insiders during discussions with VCBeat in the past few months, when only rumors were circulating. The primary focus of the industry has been on what changes this partnership will bring to the sector, how the business models of both parties will evolve, and what their next steps will be.

These questions now have answers.

Following the peak period from 2020 to 2022, the internet healthcare market has cooled down, and regulatory oversight has become stricter. Starting in 2023, the industry entered a phase of clearance and consolidation, characterized by the transfer and acquisition of numerous internet hospital licenses, as well as the deregistration of internet hospitals or companies.

The rapid dissipation of the bubble proves that chasing trends and seeking quick profits is not a viable path for survival in the healthcare industry; only long-termism can withstand market cycles.

Over the past 18 years since its establishment, Haodf Online has conducted extensive explorations in physician-patient services, laying the foundation for the emergence and growth of the internet healthcare industry; its innovative achievements in online diagnosis and treatment, telemedicine, and other services have provided important references for the subsequent formulation of industry standards.

Han Xinyi, President of Ant Group, stated at the Haodf Summit that Ant has adhered to long-termism and has been deeply engaged in the healthcare sector for a decade. “As a typical representative of digitalized medical services, Haodf shares Ant’s vision in helping the general public access quality healthcare.”

Prior to the partnership between Haodafu and Ant Group, both parties had already accumulated advantageous resources and formed a complementary relationship.

HaoDF Online is positioned as a professional platform for physicians, maintaining close, long-term communication with doctors and consistently developing and optimizing online tools tailored to their clinical workflow needs. As a result, HaoDF Online has earned a strong reputation within the industry.As of now, 280,000 doctors across China have joined the platform, serving as the core resource for Haodf Online.

Alipay, which already serves 800 million healthcare users, also extensively connects medical services, public health insurance, and commercial health insurance.Currently, more than 3,600 hospitals across China provide digital healthcare services to patients via Alipay, and over 700 million users have activated and used their medical insurance codes on the platform. Recently, Alipay also launched a commercial insurance code, aiming to create a one-stop payment experience for both basic medical insurance and commercial health insurance, which has already covered 10 million users.

Zhang Junjie, General Manager of the Digital Medical Health Division at Alipay

Regarding the next phase of collaboration between the two parties, Zhang Junjie, General Manager of Alipay’s Digital Medical Health Division, stated that Alipay will fully leverage its platform connectivity to enable 800 million patients to find 280,000 high-quality doctors more quickly and accurately. The company will also actively promote innovation in the commercial health insurance system, integrating superior innovative drugs and medical devices with high-quality physician services, thereby allowing the professional value of doctors to be more tangibly reflected in specialized disease areas.

Clearly, doctors serve as a link between Ant Group and Haodf Online.

In the past, internet technology transcended spatial limitations, enabling physicians to expand their service radius and extend care scenarios from within hospitals to outside settings. It also allowed specialists in specific diseases to precisely reach a larger patient base, thereby accumulating richer clinical experience and enhancing diagnostic and therapeutic proficiency.

However, with the development of the industry,Faced with a growing number of patients and increasingly complex cases, doctors remain stretched thin. What kind of productivity can turn the tide? Haodaifu and Ant Group’s answer is AI.

To fundamentally resolve the challenge of limited total healthcare resources, AI must unlock greater potential. In this regard, Haodf Online and Ant Group each bring distinct strengths to the table.

Since its founding 18 years ago, Haodf Online has provided a vast volume of high-quality online consultation services, accumulating extensive medical expertise. Ant Group boasts outstanding capabilities in AI technology and product research and development, with Alipay achieving significant advancements in the field of medical AI. A notable example is “Anzhen’er,” an intelligent healthcare agent developed in collaboration with the Zhejiang Provincial Health Commission, which has served over 17 million patients.

At the Haodaifu Summit, both parties announced their commitment to jointly advance “AI + Healthcare” services and unveiled a new product, the “AI Assistant,” designed to support physicians in their clinical work.

“The first issue that the ‘AI Assistant’ needs to help doctors resolve is medical record management.”

Online consultation involves diverse types of patient data, including prescriptions, medical records, and laboratory and imaging reports. These materials may be electronic screenshots or photographs of paper documents from healthcare institutions across China, featuring varied formats. Summarizing and organizing these data require substantial time and effort from physicians and their teams to provide reference value for clinical practice.

In response, the “AI Assistant” has launched a medical record management tool that leverages large language models and multimodal technologies to enable functionalities such as photo-based record storage, voice-activated record retrieval, and categorized record management. With a single voice command, physicians can consolidate information from similar medical records and track changes in statistical indicators. Currently, this tool is serving nearly 500 platform-based physicians in its initial rollout.

“AI Assistant” Medical Record Management Function

Patient education is also a crucial component of physicians’ work. Traditional in-clinic patient education has a limited reach, while creating educational articles, videos, and live streams poses high barriers for doctors and fails to meet patients’ personalized needs. The “AI Assistant” can simulate physicians’ clinical reasoning, providing round-the-clock services such as daily consultations and answers to health-related questions. Currently, this feature has been customized for nearly 1,000 physicians on Haodaifu.

“AI Assistant” Popular Science Feature

“We will also deploy dedicated technical and medical teams to provide personalized support to physicians, with the aim of ensuring that one million Chinese doctors have access to high-quality AI tools over the next decade,” said Zhang Junjie, General Manager of Alipay’s Medical and Healthcare Division.

In the past, internet-based healthcare connected doctors, patients, hospitals, and platforms, significantly enhancing the convenience of medical access for patients. Today, AI empowers physicians to improve quality and efficiency, thereby fundamentally addressing the scarcity of high-quality medical resources, with patients remaining the primary beneficiaries in the service chain. Driven by technology, universal healthcare services are transitioning toward personalized and precise medical and health services.

Zhang Junjie also noted that the healthcare industry is facing unprecedented opportunities, with AI poised to reshape the interactions between healthcare providers and patients, thereby helping to resolve the “impossible trinity” of the healthcare system. “We will join hands with our ecosystem partners, particularly the Haodafu platform and its 280,000 affiliated physicians,“Making smarter healthcare services more accessible.”

According to the vision of Wang Hang, founder of Haodf.com, both parties willCo-create the future model of healthcare delivery and build a trusted hub for patients.

What remains unchanged is,Whether in the Internet era or the AI era, only by being user-value-oriented, serving doctors and patients well, and innovating together can we meet the expectations of users and the industry.