According to a report in China Daily on February 7, 2026
BEIJING — Chinese technology companies are leveraging the Lunar New Year holiday to capture users for their AI-powered digital assistants, signaling a pivotal year for intelligent agents as they transition from novelty tools to essential daily utilities.
Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance, and Baidu are aggressively competing to secure the next-generation AI gateway, offering massive financial incentives to attract users. Tencent launched a 1-billion-yuan ($144 million) campaign through its AI-enabled Yuanbao app, distributing top prizes of up to 10,000 yuan. The initiative propelled the app, powered by models including DeepSeek, to the top of Apple’s free app rankings in China.
Alibaba followed with its flagship AI platform, Qwen, unveiling a 3-billion-yuan “festival treat” to subsidize shopping, dining, travel, and entertainment bookings within its AI-powered ecosystem. The company also directed traffic to its healthcare AI application, Ant Afu, highlighting the convergence of AI and consumer services.
Industry analysts note that this competition resembles China’s earlier race for digital payment dominance, but with higher stakes: the winner could control the “AI gateway” that manages end-to-end task execution, from booking movie tickets to ordering daily necessities.
“On-device AI agents have the potential to replace traditional apps by automating tasks directly on the user’s phone,” said Chen Jianguang, partner at EY Greater China. Qwen, for example, can handle cinema recommendations, bookings, and payments through a single chat interface, streamlining user experience.
The scale of China’s AI adoption is significant. By mid-2025, generative AI users reached 515 million, doubling in just six months, while mobile AI users totaled 720 million by October. Market research projects China’s AI sector growth to exceed 30 percent in 2026, driven by rising consumer adoption and expanding commercial applications.
However, experts caution that long-term success depends on genuine innovation and measurable efficiency gains rather than mere user acquisition. Recent product launches, including Qwen, Kimi, and DeepSeek, indicate a shift toward context-aware AI solutions addressing real-world problems.
Tech firms are also diversifying applications: ByteDance’s Doubao assists students with homework, Alibaba’s Lingguang AI supports mini-program development, and JD.com deploys AI avatars for live e-commerce. Meanwhile, the one-person company (OPC) model is enabling solo entrepreneurs to leverage AI for content creation, product operations, and service delivery, highlighting the democratization of AI-driven business in China.
“2026 is poised to be the year when AI moves from model innovation to tangible real-world impact, driving productivity growth across industries,” said Ma Beibei, AI analyst at CCID Consulting under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.