(Yicai) Feb. 3 -- Alibaba Group Holding will follow other Chinese tech giants promoting their artificial intelligence applications over China's Lunar New Year by spending CNY3 billion (USD420 million) on its Qwen assistant to attract more users to use its various shopping features.

Users will receive large red envelopes during Qwen's "Spring Festival Treats Program" under the slogan "Eat, Drink, Play, and Get Rewarded Non-Stop," Alibaba announced late yesterday, without providing detailed arrangements.

However, Yicai learned that Qwen's user acquisition initiative will launch on Feb. 6, integrating various Alibaba apps, including Taobao Flash Sale, online travel agency Fliggy, ticketing platform Damai, grocery arm Freshippo, Tmall Supermarket, and payment app Alipay.

"Most AI assistants on the market are still in the stage of simply chatting with users," an insider from the Qwen team told Yicai. "Qwen hopes to directly integrate into people's daily consumption activities during this year's Chinese New Year."

Qwen also plans to open up to third-party business ecosystems after the Lunar New Year, Wu Jia, vice president of Alibaba, previously noted.

Among other tech giants to promote their AI apps during the holiday, ByteDance's cloud computing unit Volcano Engine became the exclusive AI cloud partner for China Central Television's New Year's Gala, bringing its Doubao assistant to hundreds of millions of viewers, Baidu said it will launch a CNY500 million (USD71.9 million) giveaway for its AI users, while Tencent Holdings already started a CNY1 billion (USD144 million) red envelope campaing for its Yuanbao assistant.

Yuanbao, which was the first to start its marketing campaign, has already seen a jump in downloads, surpassing Doubao to rank first on the free app download rankings of the Apple App Store as of yesterday, while Qwen ranked seventh, Yicai found.

Giving away red envelopes is a festive activity that fits the Chinese New Year atmosphere, so it has been a common marketing tool utilized by internet giants for many years, Zhang Shule, an internet analyst, told Yicai. Firms use it to stimulate more people to install new apps and form usage habits, Zhang added.

"AI assistants are the most important new products that tech companies need to promote during this year's holiday," Zhang noted. "By giving out red envelopes, they hope to encourage more potential users to install their apps and guide them to try various application scenarios, making them users' AI entry point."

However, while red envelopes can drive traffic, they are not sufficient to change the outcome of the competition for AI entry points because they are only a reward for user participation and are not directly related to the service capabilities of the AI apps, Zhang stressed. Therefore, the Lunar New Year red envelope war among AI assistants is unlikely to cause a significant shift in their market share, Zhang pointed out.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev