Chinese tech giants Baidu and Tencent this week unveiled large cash‑back campaigns aimed at drumming up user engagement ahead of the Lunar New Year. Baidu said its Wenxin assistant will distribute a total of RMB 500 million in cash red packets through the Baidu app from January 26 to March 12, with individual payouts capped at RMB 10,000; Tencent’s Yuanbao unit announced a separate RMB 1 billion giveaway starting February 1, featuring multiple daily draws, shareable red packets and a limited number of RMB 10,000 “small horse” cards.
The mechanics are familiar: users who interact with in‑app assistants, complete tasks or make reservations receive extra chances in lotteries and can forward shareable packets to friends on Tencent’s WeChat and QQ. Baidu also positioned its Wenxin assistant as the “chief AI partner” for Beijing Radio and Television’s 2026 Spring Festival Gala, tying an AI branding moment to a national holiday with very large audiences.
These promotions are more than seasonal generosity. The Spring Festival is China’s single largest period for consumer spending and social messaging; tech platforms have long used red packets (hongbao) as both a cultural touchpoint and a powerful acquisition tool. This year’s campaigns, however, are notable for scale and for the way they explicitly link cash incentives to new AI products and behaviours — prompting users to test Wenxin’s features and to spend more time inside Yuanbao’s mini‑ecosystem.
The timing reflects several pressures and opportunities for China’s internet sector. Growth in core businesses such as advertising and app downloads has slowed from earlier double‑digit years, and firms are increasingly incentivising engagement to stabilise ad inventory, boost transaction flows and collect fresh behavioural data for AI training. For Baidu, which has been positioning Wenxin as a cornerstone of its AI strategy, the giveaway doubles as product marketing. For Tencent, the promotion leverages the company’s unparalleled social graph to turn cash incentives directly into viral reach.
The campaigns are inexpensive relative to the balance sheets of these firms, but not without tradeoffs. Heavy cash subsidies risk conditioning users to expect giveaways, raising costs for future customer retention. Regulators have in the past scrutinised aggressive financial promotions and anti‑competitive behaviour; social sharing mechanisms also raise questions about data flows, anonymisation and fraud prevention. Finally, the short‑term uplift in usage does not guarantee sustained product adoption unless the AI services deliver persistent value beyond the promotion window.
For consumers the immediate effect is clear: real money and entertainment around a culturally important period. For investors and competitors, the moves signal that China’s tech titans are willing to convert cash reserves into attention, and that the next front in the platform wars is less about downloads than about getting users to interact with AI in ways that can be monetised later.