Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s famously prolific Kwen team of AI model researchers and engineers has introduced a major expansion to its Kwen Deep Research tool, available as an optional tool that users can activate on web-based Kwen Chat (a competitor to ChatGPT).
The update lets users not only create comprehensive research reports with well-arranged citations, but also create interactive web pages and multi-speaker podcasts – all within 1-2 clicks.
This functionality is part of a proprietary releaseDifferent from many of Quen’s previous open-source model offerings.
While this feature depends on the open-source model Qwen3-coder, quen-imageAnd Qwen3-TTS To power its core capabilities, the end-to-end experience – including research execution, web deployment and audio generation – is Hosted and moderated by Quen,
This means users benefit from managed, integrated workflows without the need to configure infrastructure. That said, developers with access to the open-source model could theoretically replicate the same functionality on private or commercial systems.
The update was announced via a team official X account (@alibaba_qiwen) Today, October 21, 2025, stating:
“Quen Deep Research just got a major upgrade. It now not only produces reports, but also a live webpage and podcast – powered by Quen3-Coder, Quen-Image, and Quen3-TTS. Your insights, now visual and audible.”
Multi-Format Research Output
The main workflow starts with a user’s request inside the Quen chat interface. From there, Quen collaborates by asking clarifying questions to shape the scope of the research, pulling data from the web and official sources, and analyzing or resolving any discrepancies she finds – even creating custom code if needed.
A Demo video posted by Quen on X Quen walks through this process on chat using the US SaaS market as an example.
In it, Quain retrieves data from multiple industry sources, identifies discrepancies in market size estimates (for example, $206 billion vs. $253 billion), and highlights ambiguities in the US share in global figures. The supporting commentary comments on the differences in scope between sources and calculates a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.8% from 2020 to 2023, providing relevant analysis to support the raw data.
Once the research is complete, users can click on "eyeball" icon below the output result (see screenshot), which will bring up a PDF-style report in the right-hand pane.
Then, while viewing the report in the right-hand pane, the user can click "create" Press the button in the upper right corner and select from the following two options:
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"web dev" which produces a Live, professional-grade web pagesautomatically deployed and Hosted by KwenUsing quen3-coder for textures and quen-images for visuals.
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"podcast," which, as stated in this, produces an audio podcastIncluding dynamic, multi-speaker narration generated by Qwen3-TTS Hosted by Kwen For easy sharing and playback.
This enables users to instantly convert the same research project into multiple forms of content – written, visual and audio – with minimal additional input.
The website includes inline graphics created by Kwen Images, making it suitable for use in public presentations, classes or publishing.
The Podcasts feature allows users to choose between 17 different speaker names as host and 7 as co-hosts, although I was unable to find a way to preview the voice output before selecting them. It appears to be designed for in-depth listening on the go.
There was no way to change the language output that I could see, so like my reports and initial prompts, mine came out in English, although Quen LLMs are multi-modal. The voices were a bit more robotic than other AI tools I’ve used.
Here is an example of a web page I created On the similarities between authoritarian regimes throughout history, Another one on UFO or UAP sightingsAnd below this paragraph, a podcast on UFO or UAP sightings.
While the website is hosted via a public link, the podcast must be downloaded by the user and cannot be publicly linked, as far as I can tell in my brief use of it so far.
Note that the podcast is very different from the actual report – not a straight read audio version of it, but, rather, a new format of two hosts discussing and joking about the topic, using the report as a starting point.
Web page versions of the report also include new graphics not found in the PDF report.
Comparison with Google’s NotebookLM
While the new capabilities have been well received by many early users, comparisons to other research assistants have emerged – notably Google’s notebooklmWhich has recently come out of beta.
AI commentator and newspaper writer Chubby (@kimmonismus) noted on x,
“I’m really grateful that Kwen provides regular updates. It’s great.
But the attempt to create a NotebookLM clone inside qen-3-max doesn’t look very promising compared to Google’s version.
While NotebookLM is designed to organize and query existing documents and web pages, Quen Deep Research focuses more on Creating new research material from scratchCollecting sources from the open web, and presenting it in multiple modalities.
The comparison shows that while the two tools overlap in the general concept – AI-assisted research – they differ in targeting approach and user experience.
Availability
Quain Deep Research is now live and available via queen chat appThis feature can be accessed The following URL.
As of this writing no pricing details have been provided for Qwen3-Max or specific in-depth research capabilities.
What’s next for Quen Deep Research?
By combining research guidance, data analysis and multi-format content creation into a single tool, Quen Deep Research aims to streamline the path from idea to publishable output.
The integration of code, visuals, and voice makes it particularly attractive to content creators, teachers, and independent analysts who want to extend their research into web- or podcast-friendly forms without switching platforms.
Still, comparisons to more specialized offerings like NotebookLM raise questions about how Kween’s generalized approach stacks up on depth, accuracy, and refinement. Whether the strength of its multi-format execution outweighs those concerns may come down to user preferences – and whether they value single-click publishing over tight integration with existing notes and materials.
For now, Quain is indicating that the research doesn’t end with a document – it starts with one.
Let me know if you’d like to repackage it into something smaller or tailor it to a particular audience – newsletter, press-style blog, internal team explainer, etc.
