As the Lunar New Year holiday approaches, Chinese internet and tech giants are handing out enormous amounts of cash in the form of digital red envelopes to lure new users of their artificial intelligence (AI) apps, reports Caixin.
Following the Chinese tradition of young people receiving red envelops stuffed with cash from their elders, China’s internet giants have in recent years seized the opportunity to boost traffic and gain new users—and their valuable personal data.
The country’s dominant search engine Baidu said on Sunday that it will issue virtual red envelopes worth RMB 500 million ($72 million) from Monday to users taking part in a Chinese New Year event launched by its AI app Ernie Assistant, with the maximum cash gift per person reaching RMB 10,000. Tencent on Sunday announced a similar marketing campaign, under which the WeChat owner will give away RMB 1 billion in the form of digital red envelopes from February 1 to users participating in a Chinese New Year event run by its AI chatbot Yuanbao.