Four companies competed on the same stage, with two dominant players dividing the market share.

Years from now, when facing retirement homes, people will recall that distant evening when robots performed martial arts with weapons on the Spring Festival Gala stage. The 2026 Spring Festival Gala marked the highest AI involvement in its history, with robots demonstrating physical skills on stage and large language models providing intelligent support behind the scenes.

Four robotics companies - Songyan Power, Galaxy Universal, Unitree Robotics, and Magic Atom - showcased their capabilities through backflips, comedy sketches, clothes folding, and noodle serving performances. ByteDance's Volcano Engine transformed CCTV's stage into an AI canvas, bringing Xu Beihong's galloping horses to life. Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen collaborated with four provincial satellite TV stations, enabling 130 million people to learn how to order milk tea through voice commands to their phones.

While some complain about diminishing traditional festival atmosphere, the presence of AI elements has undoubtedly become more pronounced. The Spring Festival Gala stage has evolved into a grand showcase for AI technology companies. After this nationally televised extravaganza, which companies will sustain their presence? Which demonstrated genuine utility, and which merely participated for exposure?

The robotics segment featured four distinct character archetypes. Last year, Unitree Robotics gained attention with its robotic Yangge dance performance. For the 2026 gala, after competitive bidding involving billions of investment, the companies presented a collaborative robotics showcase.

This marked the first time four leading humanoid robotics companies appeared together in different program formats. Songyan Power participated in the comedy sketch "Grandma's Favorite," where four differently-sized robots interacted with human actors. To achieve more lifelike movements for the robotic grandmother resembling actress Cai Ming, the technical team increased motor control frequency sixfold and added three degrees of freedom to the neck for natural gesturing.

Unitree Robotics demonstrated martial arts prowess in "Wu BOT," performing alongside human martial artists from Henan Tagou Martial Arts School. The robots wielded various weapons including sticks, double-edged swords, and performed backflips, showcasing significant generational improvements in motion control technology and marking the first public demonstration of high-dynamic cluster control systems.

Magic Atom adopted an idol group approach, dancing with top celebrities like Yi Yangqianxi and Jordan Chan in the song "Intelligent Manufacturing Future." At the Yibin branch venue, their Gen1 robot performed noodle serving tasks while Z1 models acted as robotic waiters, representing the first multi-robot industrial collaboration on the gala stage.

Galaxy Universal appeared in the microfilm "My Most Memorable Tonight" starring Shen Teng and Ma Li, portraying practical household robots capable of walnut handling, choir directing, shelf organization, desktop tidying, sausage cooking, and clothes folding - emphasizing domestic utility.

The sequencing of appearances across comedy, martial arts, musical, and film formats covered all major gala program types, intentionally demonstrating diverse applications beyond technical showcasing. Notably, each company received different official designations reflecting their technical focus areas: motion control, embodied intelligence, industrial production, or social interaction.

Meanwhile, provincial satellite channels incorporated robotics differently: Henan TV integrated robots with Chinese martial arts, Shenzhen TV recreated classic scenes from Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle," while Hubei TV combined robotics with musical performance.

In the large language model segment, a duopoly emerged between ByteDance and Alibaba. ByteDance's Volcano Engine served as exclusive AI cloud partner for CCTV, handling 1.9 billion AI interactions during New Year's Eve with peak throughput reaching 63.3 billion tokens - representing the first billion-scale concurrent inference operation globally. Their technology animated Xu Beihong's "Six Horses" painting with physically accurate movements and authentic ink wash aesthetics.

Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen dominated four major provincial satellite channels, solving technical challenges like human-horse interaction in Yang Liping's "Thousand Horses Galloping" performance and generating culturally resonant visual elements. Their strategy of surrounding central media with provincial partnerships proved effective.

Post-gala impacts reveal strategic differentiation. Unitree Robotics, following last year's performance, achieved annual shipments exceeding 5,500 units and is advancing toward IPO, using this year's high-difficulty demonstrations to signal motion control advancements for higher valuation. Songyan Power focused on interactive understanding, with pre-orders surpassing 1,000 units demonstrating commercial potential for service applications. Galaxy Universal emphasized cognitive capabilities through embodied intelligence, while Magic Atom prioritized engineering and mass production capabilities.

The large language model market shows higher concentration, with ByteDance and Alibaba dominating mindshare through deep content integration. Tencent and Baidu adopted more defensive positions with traditional红包 campaigns (10 billion and 5 billion yuan respectively) rather than technical integration.

Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen processed 50 million "help me" voice commands resulting in 130 million completed transactions, with nearly half originating from county-level users including 4 million seniors over 60. ByteDance's Doubao focused on creative applications, generating 50 million festive avatars and 100 million holiday greetings.

As AI technology reaches the tipping point from early adopters to mass users, Spring Festival scenarios provide crucial opportunities for habit formation. After the gala concludes and daily routines resume, the key question remains: how frequently will these newly installed AI applications continue to be used?