During the Spring Festival holiday, the media industry experienced increased exposure driven by continuous catalysts in film, gaming, and artificial intelligence (AI). First, in the film sector, the Spring Festival lineup featured eight movies spanning various genres, creating a competitive landscape. Pre-release audience interest, measured by cumulative "want-to-see" data from 90 to 13 days before release, reached 1.29 million, surpassing the figures for 2023 and 2024. Second, in gaming, numerous titles, including social games, launched operational activities during the holiday, which are expected to boost revenue and sustain high industry vitality. Third, in AI, several leading models are anticipated to release updated versions around the festival. Major internet companies are accelerating AI commercialization through red packet campaigns and partnerships with Spring Festival Gala events. Additionally, overseas firm Anthropic introduced Cowork and industry-specific plugins, extending B2B commercialization into general office scenarios.
In the film category, eight movies are scheduled for the Spring Festival period. The lineup includes comedies, crime thrillers, fantasy films, martial arts productions, animated features, and documentaries. Notable titles are the third installment of the "Pegasus" series, "Pegasus 3"; renowned director Zhang Yimou's new work "Silent Awakening"; the martial arts film "Blade Man: Desert Storm" starring Wu Jing and Nicholas Tse; and the comedy-fantasy "Panda Project: Tribal Adventure" featuring Jackie Chan and Ma Li. The cumulative "want-to-see" count for this year's festival films stands at 1.29 million, exceeding the 1.15 million and 950,000 recorded in 2023 and 2024, respectively. "Silent Awakening" leads with 780,000, followed by "Pegasus 3" and "Blade Man." For the Spring Festival Gala, China Media Group unveiled the Year of the Horse mascot "Galloping Steed," which will be developed into an iterative product system through cultural merchandise and IP licensing. A series of digital assets based on the mascot, led by Zhejiang Culture Exchange, will be distributed free across multiple platforms during the gala broadcast.
In gaming, "Strange Loop" commenced its third closed beta, "Coexistence Test," on February 4. As of February 7, the game ranked second on TapTap's reservation chart with an anticipation score of 9.0, indicating high interest. It is expected to launch on May 15. Meanwhile, "Supernatural Task Force" and "Goose Goose Duck" have rolled out Spring Festival events, including themed activities, gameplay bonuses, and creative incentives. These socially oriented multiplayer games are poised to gain visibility during the holiday, potentially driving daily active user growth.
In AI, domestic large models are entering a phase of intensive updates around the Spring Festival. Models such as Alibaba's Qwen3.5, Doubao 2.0, Seedream5.0, MiniMax M2.2, and Zhipu's GLM-5 are anticipated to release new versions. On the commercialization front, Alibaba's Qianwen App launched a holiday campaign with 3 billion yuan in free credits; Tencent's Yuanbao distributed 1 billion yuan in cash red packets; Baidu offered 500 million yuan; and ByteDance's Douyin featured a 300-million-yuan collectible campaign, with Volcano Engine serving as the exclusive AI cloud partner for the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. The sector is transitioning from technical validation to commercial value realization, as internet giants leverage the high user engagement and social dynamics of the festival to accelerate adoption.
Overseas, Anthropic released Cowork, an AI agent for knowledge workers that performs complex office tasks via natural language commands, marking an expansion from developer-focused tools like Claude Code to general office applications. The company also open-sourced 11 industry plugins for Cowork, covering sectors such as sales, finance, and law, enabling functions like automated contract review and compliance checks. While current AI agents can handle simple office tasks, limitations remain for complex duties involving private data or lengthy decision-making processes. Additionally, the Claude Opus 4.6 model boasts a 1-million-token context window, reducing context decay in long-text processing; introduces context compression for extended dialogues and agent tasks; and supports Agent Teams for parallel collaboration among multiple intelligences.
Recommended stocks to watch include Bona Film Group in the film sector; and Kingnet Network, Giant Network, G-bits, XD, and SinoThrive in gaming. Risks include potential setbacks in AI development, underwhelming box office performance, and lower-than-expected game revenue.