China's tech titans spent $618 million on AI chatbots during LNY
During the 2026 Lunar New Year, China's biggest tech companies spent over 4.5 billion yuan (roughly $618 million) on digital red envelopes to get people using their AI chatbots for shopping, booking, and payments.
This was a bigger splash than even WeChat's famous red packet campaign.
Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba in a spending showdown
Baidu started things off with a 500 million yuan push that sent Ernie Bot's user numbers soaring and image generation through the roof.
Tencent followed up with 1 billion yuan for its Yuanbao chatbot, leading to 3.6 billion lucky draws.
Not to be outdone, Alibaba's Qwen campaign reached over 130 million users and handled more than 120 million orders in just six days.
Why this matters: The bigger picture
All this spending wasn't just about holiday fun: these companies want their AI bots to become your go-to for daily tasks.
By making AI part of everyday transactions now, they're setting themselves up to lead how we shop and pay in the future.