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Alibaba’s AI agent, Qwen (千问), has been making headlines with the launch of its “Spring Festival 3 Billion Giveaway” (春节30亿大免单) campaign.
On February 6th, Qwen began offering unlimited free bubble tea vouchers. Users could order a drink through a simple prompt to Qwen, which would then process it through its Alipay integration without having to jump between multiple apps.
But the bubble tea campaign is just the visible tip of Alibaba’s AI strategy.
Two weeks earlier, on January 15th, the tech giant announced that Qwen had integrated with major platforms across its ecosystem including Taobao Flash Buy (淘宝闪购), Fliggy (飞猪), Damai (大麦), Freshippo (盒马), Tmall Supermarket (天猫超市), and Alipay (支付宝).
This means users can now purchase anything from bubble tea to concert tickets to flights with a single prompt to Alibaba’s AI agent. It’s the beginning of a fundamental shift in how AI is used in daily life, captured in this popular internet slang phrase:
From chatting to getting things done: Qwen breaks down AI’s “dimensional wall.”
从聊天到办事：千问拆掉AI的”次元壁”。
In other words… going from the virtual into real world use.
Qwen’s milk tea campaign covered over 300,000 tea stores nationwide, including major brands like Heytea (喜茶), Nayuki (奈雪的茶), Luckin Coffee (瑞幸咖啡), and Mixue Bingcheng (蜜雪冰城).
The giveaway immediately triggered a consumer frenzy. Within hours of the launch, Qwen crashed due to overwhelming traffic, and “Get free bubble tea from Qwen” (千问免费奶茶) began trending on social media as users showed off their “first AI bubble tea” (第一杯AI奶茶).
A staggering 10 million orders were completed through Qwen in just 9 hours. The sudden surge put huge pressure on tea shops and delivery riders around the country, with many outlets forced to close due to lack of personnel and inability to fulfil orders, as one shop owner explained:
“We’re overwhelmed, so I haven’t had time to check. But the order volume is several times more than usual.”
“太忙了，还没来得及看，比平时多出好几倍。” [1]
Related
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The lead up to Spring Festival has always been an important battleground for China’s tech companies to attract eyeballs and new users through discounts and freebies. It’s also a time to cultivate new consumption habits.
This follows the playbook of WeChat’s legendary 2015 Spring Festival Gala red envelope campaign — a move Alibaba founder Jack Ma famously called a “Pearl Harbour attack” (偷袭珍珠港) on his payments business, which cemented WeChat’s dominant position in mobile payments overnight.
Competition between China’s tech giants and their AI agents (AI助手 in Chinese) is similarly intense. Qwen is competing with DeepSeek, Tencent’s Yuanbao (腾讯元宝), ByteDance’s Doubao (豆包), and Baidu’s Wenxin Assistant (文心助手).
By the end of 2025, Doubao dominated China’s AI app market with 172 million monthly active users, while DeepSeek held second place with 145 million. Tencent’s Yuanbao trailed in third with around 73 million monthly active users. And Qwen, despite being backed by Alibaba’s massive ecosystem, sat at around 30 million monthly active users.
Qwen’s Spring Festival offensive is designed to close that gap by “integrating AI into daily life and solving real needs” (接入生活、解决刚需). Through the gimmick of free bubble tea, Qwen is hoping to cultivate a simple idea of:
“If you need something, just ask Qwen” (有事找千问).
While Qwen launched its 3 billion yuan Spring Festival voucher campaign, Baidu’s Wenxin splashed 500 million yuan in red envelopes, and Tencent’s Yuanbao countered with a 1 billion yuan giveaway on WeChat.
But Doubao has the highest-profile play yet to come. It will offer "hardcore" (硬核) giveaways of tech products integrated with AI capabilities as the official AI partner of the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala. ByteDance's cloud computing division, Volcano Engine, secured the exclusive AI cloud partnership for the show. As part of the deal, Doubao will provide interactive AI features during the broadcast on New Year's Eve, reaching the gala's massive audience — which attracted a record-breaking 1 billion viewers in 2025.
So which AI agent will come out of this year’s Spring Festival on top?
That’s what we’re discussing this week!
Favourite Five
1. 拉拢 lā lǒng
win over, draw over (to one’s side)
奶茶早已成为拉拢年轻人的通行证 - Bubble tea has long become the key to winning over young people. [1]
Related:
聚拢 jù lǒng – gather together
拉新 lā xīn – attract new customers
2. 裂变 liè biàn
fission, viral growth
腾讯元宝以 10 亿红包切入微信社交场景，采用 “分享抽奖、邀友加码” 的裂变玩法 - Tencent launched a 1-billion-yuan viral referral campaign on WeChat to rapidly grow its AI assistant Yuanbao, incentivizing users to share the app with friends in exchange for cash rewards. [3]
3. 次元壁 cì yuán bì
dimensional wall, barrier between worlds
从聊天到办事：千问拆掉AI的“次元壁” - Beyond the chatbot: Qwen breaks the AI “dimensional wall”. [2]
4. 投石问路 tóu shí wèn lù
test the waters, make a trial move
奶茶只是前站，是投石问路的先锋 - Qwen is just testing the waters with their bubble tea campaign and it’s not going to stop there. [2]
5. 必争之地 bì zhēng zhī dì
a place that must be fought over, strategic battleground
红包大战补贴外，春晚赞助也成为了兵家必争之地 - Apart from the subsidy war of red envelopes, Spring Festival Gala sponsorship has also become a strategic battleground for the tech giants. [3]
🎧RTM Podcast Preview
This week on the RTM Advanced podcast, we explain three advanced phrases for discussing business and tech trends.
But none of them actually started out as Chinese expressions!
Tune in at 7 minutes where we break down what they mean and the stories behind them…
How native speakers use them…
And how you can use them in real conversations right now and show off your amazing Chinese!
Consuming the Conversation
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Consuming the Conversation
Useful words
6. 爆单 bào dān
a surge of orders, orders flooding in
所有的奶茶店都爆单了，我这全部都超时了，在向平台申诉 - All the boba places are swamped. All my orders are running late and I’m disputing the late penalties with the platform. [1]
7. 席卷 xí juǎn
sweep across, sweep through
在今天的这一场奶茶大战前，餐饮行业早已被“外卖大战”席卷近半年 - Long before today’s bubble tea showndown, the food and beverage industry had already been ravaged by the delivery war for nearly half a year. [1]
8. 崩溃 bēng kuì
collapse, break down
停不下来！停不下来！我们要崩溃了！！ - The orders keep coming in! There’s no sign of stop and we’re about to break down!! [1]
Related:
崩了 bēng le – crashed
炸了 zhà le – blew up (slang: exploded/overloaded)
瘫痪 tān huàn – paralyzed, shut down
9. 攻势 gōng shì
offensive, aggressive push
千问“春节 30 亿大免单” 以购物免单为核心，率先打响奶茶攻势 - Qwen fires the first shot in the bubble tea offensive with 3-billion-yuan promo. [2]
10. 刚需 gāng xū
rigid demand, essential need
红包大战可以换来一时流量，却换不来长期刚需 - Cash giveaway can drive traffic in the short run, but it can’t build sustainable demand. [3]
11. 出招 chū zhāo
make a move, make a strategic move
外界将继续关注豆包和抖音的战略进展，尤其是在赞助央视春晚前和期间的出招 - Market attention remains focused on Doubao and Douyin’s strategic roadmap, with all eyes on its sponsorship moves before and during the Spring Gala. [4]
Related:
接招 jiē zhāo - respond to a move, counter a move
