‘So tired I want to cry’: AI promotional giveaways swamp shops in China

(2 minute read)

‘So Tired I Want to Cry’: China’s AI Subsidy War Swamps Shops
AI-driven Chinese New Year giveaways triggered a surge of instant drink orders, leaving shops and delivery riders scrambling to keep up.

China’s tech giants are using Chinese New Year red envelopes to promote their AI assistants, flooding the market with billions of yuan in subsidies that have crashed servers, clogged messaging systems, and overwhelmed food service workers.

The subsidy campaign, dubbed “red envelope war” online, began last week, when social media and gaming giant Tencent rolled out a 1 billion yuan ($140 million) red envelope promotion through its Yuanbao AI assistant, followed by a 500 million yuan campaign from search giant Baidu’s Wenxin AI and a 3 billion yuan push by Alibaba’s Qwen Chatbot.

The Alibaba campaign quickly spiraled out of control. On Feb. 6, Qwen processed more than 5 million orders within five hours, sending the app to the top of Apple’s domestic free app chart.

Photos and videos on social media showed receipt printers churning out long strips of unclaimed orders. Millions of orders rushed in at once, overwhelming the system and crashing servers. At physical milk tea shops, confused staff fielded nonstop questions from delivery riders asking about orders.

NB. The original article's title is ‘So Tired I Want to Cry’: China’s AI Subsidy War Swamps Shops. I tried to make it clearer for readers who aren't familiar with the context.