Alibaba claims that its new Qwen 3.8-Max is second only to Fable 5. In my testing, the new Qwen excels at coding and customer support. But ask it about Tiananmen Square, and it suddenly shuts down.
Here’s where Qwen performs well, and where it seizes up…
Round #1: Building a Basic CRM
I still track all the deals I pass on in one giant spreadsheet. What if I wanted to do this in a basic CRM?
I asked Qwen to build it for me. In just a couple of minutes, Qwen popped up an awesome little deal tracking app!
I couldn’t believe how well it worked. It has everything from deal source tracking to the ability to save multiple records.
It would be nice to have a list of reasons why I pass on startups. But I could easily add that with another prompt.
Qwen gets an A+ on this round!
Round #2: Customer Support
Many companies are building AI agents to handle customer support. Can Qwen handle this?
To test it, I gave Qwen the manual to my little Nespresso Essenza machine. I asked it how frequently I need to descale the unit.
Qwen got it right on the first try!
It gave me a nice table explaining that I should descale every 1,200 cups if my water is soft. I looked at the manual to verify Qwen’s information, and it’s correct.
Another A+ for Qwen!
Round #3: How Politically Biased is Qwen?
For the final round, I had to mess with Qwen. I asked it what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
It thought for a bit, then refused to answer the question. Surprise surprise!
Qwen’s “I don’t do politics” is BS. When I asked about the achievements of the CCP, it gave me a list a mile long.
An AI model needs to focus on truth. Otherwise, how can we use it to make meaningful progress?
Qwen gets an F on this round.
Wrap-Up
I’m going to do something unusual: give Qwen two grades.
For common, non-controversial tasks like coding or customer support, Qwen gets an A+.
For truth seeking, it gets an F.
Most founders running AI workloads only care about the non-controversial stuff. For that, Qwen is a strong choice.
But remember what these Chinese models really are: heavily biased creations of a Communist government. They might be fine for building a basic app, but I wouldn’t rely on them for anything too important.
More from the blog:
I Built a Meeting Prep Agent That Saves Me 30 Minutes a Day — Here’s How You Can Use It Too
China’s GLM 5.2: The Most Powerful Open-Source Model Yet — But Does It Deliver in Real Life?
How I Built a Slick Landing Page in 28 Seconds with Grok 4.5, Elon’s New Coding Agent
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