This Spring Festival, it seems unlikely that anyone in the AI departments of major tech companies will be leaving work on time. One might have thought that in the AI era, tech giants would adopt more sophisticated strategies, perhaps moving away from the traditional red envelope frenzy. The idea was that they would compete on models, inference capabilities, and agents—look at last year's DeepSeek, which not only skipped red envelopes but didn't even offer a virtual "red envelope skin," yet still became wildly popular. However, after chatting with friends in several large model departments, it became clear that there's no sense of "let's deal with it next year" relaxation; instead, everyone is preparing for the intense competition during the holiday period.
This year is peculiarly synchronized, as if the major players had a meeting: from ByteDance's Doubao to Baidu's Wenxin, from Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen to Tencent's Yuanbao, all are jumping into the fray! No one intends to let another dominate the stage. A friend's remark hit the nail on the head: times have changed. Last year's competition for AI entry points was just the beginning, with most companies in a wait-and-see mode, lacking decisive action. Now, even after a full year of pushing AI-native applications, who dares claim an unshakable lead? Thus, the Spring Festival period has suddenly gained strategic importance: some aim to leverage massive holiday traffic to solidify their lead, others are eager to close the gap with front-runners and relive past glory, while latecomers see the holiday—a golden window with ample free time and low participation barriers—as a now-or-never opportunity.
Shortly after ByteDance announced its sponsorship of the Spring Festival Gala, Tencent prepared a 10 billion cash red envelope campaign, almost simultaneously followed by Baidu's 5 billion yuan bet, with Qianwen officially joining the battle yesterday. Amid the excitement, what's truly intriguing is that when all players unanimously choose the most traditional method (cash giveaways) to promote the most advanced technology (AI), it signals that the competition for AI entry has entered the "deep-water zone of scenarios."
Examining each company's strategy now reveals fascinating nuances. With model capabilities largely comparable—whether drafting copy, generating images, reasoning, or coding—the real battle hinges on other factors. Let's break it down: ByteDance's Doubao relies on its signature approach—superior product strength combined with the massive traffic of the Douyin ecosystem to rapidly capture market share. It aims to test whether the strategy that dominated the information flow and short video eras remains effective in the AI age. Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen takes a "heavier" route, integrating across Quark, Taobao, and DingTalk. Imagine querying Qianwen not just for chat but to order food, track parcels, or book flights—it's positioning AI as a service. Tencent's Yuanbao adopts a more low-key stance. Before Pony Ma's annual speech, Yuanbao was quietly seeded within Tencent's vast ecosystem, focusing on private interaction scenarios like comment sections and group chats, embodying a "nurturing without notice" philosophy.
Baidu's approach appears somewhat "out of sync": instead of pushing a standalone app, it embeds the Wenxin assistant directly into the familiar search bar used daily. Is this conservative? Not necessarily. Search is Baidu's core competency, with Baidu App boasting 700 million monthly active users—a ready-made user base. Ignoring these 700 million users to chase new ones elsewhere would be putting the cart before the horse. Moreover, if you were the decision-maker, would you bet on users downloading another app or integrating AI where they already are? The latter seems more logical. Concentrating resources on the "Wenxin Assistant" may seem less flashy, but for Baidu, it's more pragmatic.
From another perspective, the tech giants' Spring Festival showdown is ultimately a battle for "brand mindshare." When technological experiences show little differentiation, being remembered often outweighs being downloaded. Baidu's strategy is the clearest: saturate the market with the "Wenxin" brand alone. While users still confuse "Doubao and Yuanbao," Baidu wants them to remember "use AI by opening Baidu." ByteDance still believes in a "product matrix," with Doubao for general use and Kouzi, Jimeng, etc., for parallel layouts—essentially, not betting on a single name. Alibaba has built a dual-layer structure with the "Tongyi" tech brand and "Qianwen" product brand, which unifies the technical image but may lengthen user认知 paths, sometimes causing confusion. Tencent's Yuanbao carries the least brand baggage, as the company seems in no rush to become synonymous with AI, preferring a product-tool approach, like integrating deeply with WeChat and thriving in public account comments.
Therefore, the Spring Festival campaign更像一场大型实验的开幕. ByteDance is testing the ceiling of "traffic + product," Alibaba is exploring the integrated value of "AI as a service," Tencent is gauging the viability of "socialized AI," and Baidu has chosen a path that fits its DNA: not starting from scratch but letting AI grow naturally from search habits. After the holiday, it will be interesting to see which AI products retain their spots on users' phones. That said, most ordinary users don't care about corporate rivalries. As long as they don't need to install extra apps or remember complex names, and can get things done naturally in familiar places, that's enough. So, Baidu's "no-reinvention" path might just allow it to quietly reap the benefits of this collective promotion frenzy, potentially emerging as the biggest winner of the Spring Festival battle.
Correction and discussion: Dachang-Boy
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