ByteDance's Doubao has made its move in the AI red packet battle. On February 10, Doubao officially launched its "Doubao Celebrates Chinese New Year" campaign, distributing festive red packets to users and offering over 100,000 tech gifts integrated with Doubao's large model and cash red packets during the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala broadcast on New Year's Eve.

This marks the entry of the fourth major player into the AI red packet competition, following Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen with its 30 billion yuan "Spring Festival Treat Plan," Tencent's Yuanbao with 10 billion yuan in cash red packets, and Baidu's ERNIE Assistant with 5 billion red packets. With total marketing expenditures from major internet companies exceeding 45 billion yuan, the competition for AI access points has reached unprecedented intensity.

The Spring Festival period, characterized by intensive social interactions and extended online engagement among Chinese users, has long been a critical window for user acquisition by internet products. From WeChat's 2015 red packet campaign that rapidly penetrated payment scenarios through "shake-to-win" activities during the Spring Festival Gala, to short video platforms driving user growth via card collection activities in 2022, the leveraging effect of holiday scenarios on user habit formation has been repeatedly demonstrated.

This year's AI red packet battle is distinguished by "AI empowerment plus ecosystem synergy," with each major player's strategy reflecting their core ecosystem strengths. Tencent's Yuanbao fired the first shot with its 10 billion yuan cash red packet campaign running from February 1 to February 17. Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng stated internally that he hopes this initiative will "recreate the WeChat red packet moment from 11 years ago."

Yuanbao's campaign deeply integrates with WeChat and QQ's social ecosystems, combining social fission, AI interaction, and cash incentives. Within 14 hours of launch, Yuanbao topped Apple's App Store free chart, surpassing long-time leader Doubao. Following the proliferation of Yuanbao's red packet links across WeChat groups, Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen responded with its "30 Billion Yuan Free Treat" campaign starting February 6. Users updating the Qianwen app received a 25-yuan no-threshold free card redeemable at over 300,000 milk tea shops nationwide, plus Taobao instant purchases and food delivery services. The campaign generated over 10 million AI orders within nine hours of launch.

As the highest-spending announced participant, Tongyi Qianwen's strategy extends beyond pure cash subsidies to deep integration with its commercial ecosystem. Meanwhile, Doubao, which had earlier announced its partnership with the Spring Festival Gala and previously led the market, has now joined the competition ahead of schedule with a two-phase approach: pre-festival interactive lottery red packets, followed by second-phase red packets and tech gift lotteries during the gala broadcast.

Doubao's "tech gift package" includes access to Unitree robots, Bambu Lab 3D printers, DJI drones, XGIMI projectors, Supor rice cookers, along with usage rights for SAIC Audi E5 Sportback and Mercedes-Benz CLA electric vehicles, highlighting its differentiation from Tencent and Alibaba's approaches.

The current red packet competition represents a strategic positioning for next-generation traffic distribution rights. Over the past decade, each restructuring of internet traffic patterns has been accompanied by Spring Festival red packet battles. However, unlike short-term user acquisition campaigns, the current battle reflects tech giants' search for new growth avenues through AI amid plateauing mobile internet traffic.

Industry consensus suggests future general-purpose AI agents will aggregate vertical applications, potentially enabling users to meet all online needs through just a few AI assistants. This could disrupt existing traffic gateway patterns, with control over AI-era access points determining digital traffic distribution for the next decade.

Current strategies reveal divergent bets on AI gateway formats: Baidu combines search with AI, Tencent leverages social strengths, Alibaba focuses on e-commerce scenarios, while ByteDance emphasizes entertainment interactions—each reflecting their ecosystem DNA. The competition is simultaneously driving AI industry advancement, marking China's transition from the 2023-2025 "model wars" phase to the 2026-forward "gateway wars" era.

With AI assistants reaching functional parity, competition now centers on ecosystem integration, scenario embedding, and business model validation. Baidu's ERNIE Assistant connects with Meituan and JD.com through open ecosystems, Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen deep-links e-commerce transactions, Tencent's Yuanbao explores AI socializing, and ByteDance focuses on content creation—these differentiated paths are reshaping industry value chains.

Yuanbao's explosive DAU growth has directly impacted computing infrastructure demand. Alibaba Cloud infrastructure head Deng Conglin noted preparations for "sufficient and elastic AI computing power" to handle potential traffic spikes from Qianwen, demonstrating upstream ripple effects across the AI industry chain.

For the industry, post-holiday retention represents the real challenge. Baidu's 2019 Spring Festival Gala campaign with 9 billion yuan in red packets generated 20.8 billion interactions, boosting Baidu App DAU from 160 million to 300 million. However, QuestMobile reported just 2% seven-day retention among new users. Citi research suggests frequent usage can improve retention, though risks include "coupon hunters" uninstalling apps and low switching costs due to feature homogeneity. Historical retention rates for internet products' Spring Festival campaigns range between 15-25%; whether AI assistants can exceed this threshold will determine the ultimate outcome of the "gateway wars."

The battle for AI-to-consumer market share has commenced. This Spring Festival red packet competition represents merely the opening act of AI's mass adoption era. When the smoke clears, the true competition—the protracted war over AI ecosystems—will just be beginning.