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China’s AI red-packet battle burns through US$1 billion – but will users stick around?
China's major tech giants — Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, and Tencent — collectively spent an estimated 8 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion) on AI assistant promotions during Chinese New Year, according to Morgan Stanley. The marketing blitz aimed to turn their respective AI assistants into household names through traditional red-packet campaigns. Early post-holiday data is now being analyzed to determine which platforms achieved lasting user engagement from the spending surge.