China’s AI chatbots are advanced and versatile — and begging for more users: NPR

BEIJING – When it comes to AI chatbots, American companies claim they are investing in creating the best technology. For Chinese companies, it’s less about being on the cutting edge and more about getting people to use their apps all the time. People like 19-year-old delivery driver Li Hao.

Li says he is a loyal user of Doubao, ByteDance’s AI chatbot, China’s most popular. But during the Lunar New Year holidays in February, he tried another one — Alibaba’s Quon — because the company was offering milk tea when ordered through a chatbot.

“I tried it and I got milk tea,” he said. “After that, I never used it again.”

Welcome to the front lines of China’s chatbot wars.

The competitive landscape among AI apps in China is fierce. And companies are pouring money into the market to woo customers and show them how AI is useful in everyday life – especially for purchasing goods. The free tea wasn’t just to entice new users; This was to introduce them to the idea of ​​delegating tasks to chatbots for purchasing.

The AI ​​landscape is dominated by some of China’s top tech companies, including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance. There are also major startups including Moonshot AI and DeepSeek created a stir Last year with an AI model that outperformed expectations.

Alibaba alone says it has allocated more than $430 million for holiday promotions. Tencent and Baidu gave away millions of coupons and rewards. Investment bank Morgan Stanley estimates that the top apps spent a combined more than $1.1 billion on promotions during the Lunar New Year holidays, when people traditionally give red envelopes of cash as gifts for good luck.

“Competition among domestic Chinese tech players is increasing again, which I believe is a good thing from an innovation perspective,” said George Chen, technology analyst at Asia Group in Hong Kong.

Chen says spending on holiday promotions gave him a feeling deja vu. A decade ago, Alibaba and Tencent engaged in a similar promo slug-fest over their online payments apps. And he says that this gave a big boost to the e-commerce industry.

“I would argue that because of the competition, it’s really what’s driving China’s e-commerce to grow so fast,” he said.

China’s e-commerce ecosystem is now one of the most developed in the world, with ubiquitous “super apps” where you can do everything from pay utility bills to book a cruise, and get instant delivery to much of the country.

“History is repeating,” Chen said.

The new battlefield is AI. And Chinese companies want consumers to use their apps to actually do something – not just look at things.

For example, with Quen, ordering milk tea is almost as simple as telling the chatbot: “I’d like to order milk tea.” The prompt offers quick drink suggestions available at nearby stores. All you have to do is pick one, and tell us how you like it – all within the AI ​​app instead of being sent to another app or website.

If you’re a user of Alibaba’s payments app Alipay, Quen already knows where you are and can make one-tap payments as well as figure out where to send a delivery.

Doubao, on the other hand, has been included on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, as someone you can talk to via DM. Tencent’s Yuanbao chatbot has been ported to WeChat, China’s most popular messaging platform, and linked to WeChat Pay.

And unlike apps like Doordash or UberEats, chatbots can do more than just order food. You can use a single chatbot conversation to conduct all types of transactions, from buying a plane ticket to taking a trip or booking a doctor’s appointment.

Kyle Chan follows Chinese technology at the Brookings Institution think tank and says Alibaba wants Qube to be the new everything app. “They see AI models as a starting point for doing everything you do in the online world, and perhaps to some extent, offline in the real world as well,” he said.

The Lunar New Year gifts were so massive that it caused chaos at some takeout shops when orders suddenly surged. Videos and reports Online.

But they also hit a record in the number of daily active users on the AI ​​platform. Chinese research firm QuestMobile reported that more than 73.5 million people used Quon on February 7 as the promotion was starting. Alibaba has not disclosed official numbers.

The number of daily users of ByteDance’s Doubao also exceeded 144 million after it partnered with state TV to run a promotion during the widely watched annual Lunar New Year TV celebration.

However, retaining those customers can be a challenge. According to online news reports, daily usage has declined again since the holiday frenzy.

After taking advantage of the free milk tea from Quyen, delivery driver Li Hao went back to his favorite AI.

“I still like to use Doubao,” he said.