The Spring Festival is approaching, and the "red envelope war" among Internet giants is starting again. Tencent Yuanbao took the lead and distributed a 1 billion yuan cash red envelope; Baidu followed closely and invested 500 million yuan to join the battle; Alibaba Qianwen has launched a "Spring Festival Hospitality Plan" with a scale of 3 billion yuan. Behind this billion yuan "red envelope rain" is a fierce competition among major companies for AI (artificial intelligence) traffic entry, and everyone wants to replicate the success of WeChat igniting the market through red envelopes in the past. But industry experts point out that if the subsequent product strength is insufficient, the excitement may only be a flash in the pan. Only by converting short-term traffic into real user habits can we achieve long-term growth. On February 2nd, Alibaba's AI assistant "Qianwen" announced that it will officially launch the "Spring Festival Invitational Plan" with a total amount of 3 billion yuan on the 6th. This plan collaborates with Alibaba based businesses such as Taobao flash purchase, Fliggy, Damai, and Hema to provide users with consumption benefits in the form of "free orders". On January 25th, Tencent Yuanbao announced that it will distribute 1 billion yuan in cash red envelopes, which will last from February 1st to 17th, with a maximum of 10000 yuan per red envelope. On the same day, Baidu also announced that from January 26th to March 12th, using Wenxin Assistant on the Baidu App can participate in the distribution of 500 million yuan in cash red envelopes, with a maximum reward of 10000 yuan. The Spring Festival red envelope battle is not a new phenomenon. In 2015, WeChat used the Spring Festival Gala to distribute 500 million red envelopes, which greatly promoted the popularity of WeChat Pay. In 2016, Alipay launched "Jiwufu", with a total amount of 200 million yuan in red packets. In 2019, Baidu invested 1.9 billion yuan in its first participation and gained over 100 million new users. In 2021, the war reached its climax, with Tiktok, Kwai and Pinduoduo hitting 2 billion yuan, 2.1 billion yuan and 2.8 billion yuan respectively. Afterwards, the red envelope war gradually came to an end. Why did the war reignite this year? Zhang Yi, CEO of iMedia Consulting, said that the core purpose of Internet giants to restart the red envelope war is to quickly seize the AI user entrance and drive the growth of new users with the help of the high-frequency social scene of the Spring Festival. In fact, Tencent Chairman and CEO Pony Ma stated at an internal meeting that he hopes to "recreate the shining moment of WeChat red envelopes in 2015". The reason behind the money giveaway is AI traffic. Journalists noticed that unlike previous "direct money giveaways," the red envelope activities announced by the three companies this time are deeply linked to AI product functions. Tencent Yuanbao's red envelope gameplay is rooted in its social ecosystem. Users can obtain red envelopes through daily login, task lottery, sharing on WeChat or QQ, and other methods. Among them, some tasks require users to "generate red envelope covers with AI" and "chat with AI about Spring Festival topics" to guide users to experience AI functions. Baidu has extended the activity cycle to 45 days and designed that all red envelopes can only be obtained by completing AI tasks through the "Wenxin Assistant", in order to encourage users to repeatedly use its AI services. The underlying logic of the red envelope war has shifted from simply 'throwing money' to ecological collaboration and scene embedding. ”According to Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, Tencent uses a task system to direct traffic towards the core functions of its products, and focuses on a closed-loop design of "sharing interaction retention", such as setting up multiple rounds of withdrawals, binding blessing language triggers, etc., aiming to extend the user's usage cycle. Behind the fierce competition is the general anxiety of Internet giants about the new entrance of AI traffic. Industry data shows that the market landscape for AI applications is rapidly changing. In the third quarter of 2025, Doubao surpassed DeepSeek to rank first with 172 million monthly active users. However, Alibaba Qianwen has only been online for two months, and its monthly active users have already exceeded 100 million. Facing the continuous influx of competitors, how to stabilize monthly active users and build a moat has become an urgent issue. ”Jiang Han said that the Spring Festival, as the peak of national traffic, naturally became a key window for Internet giants to catch up and seize users' minds and market share. After the red envelope is burned out, it becomes a test. The huge red envelope brings immediate results. On February 1st, Tencent Yuanbao launched a 1 billion yuan red envelope campaign, and its application quickly topped the free list on the Apple App Store. However, how to retain users after peak traffic becomes another challenge. Jiang Han stated that simply "burning money for traffic" faces severe retention challenges. "The success of WeChat red envelopes back then was due to the embedding of payment as a necessary scenario. Currently, AI assistants have not yet become a daily necessity for users, and there is a lack of sustained motivation to use them after the popularity of red envelopes. ”Tencent Weishi is a precedent. In the 2020 Spring Festival, Weishi invested 1 billion yuan in red envelopes, attempting to compete for the short video market with "social+red envelopes". The event once led to a surge in downloads and even topped the free list on the Apple App Store, but it eventually fell silent due to low user retention. If the product cannot provide irreplaceable value, it is difficult to cross the threshold of 'tasting and then losing' solely through subsidies, "said Jiang Han. In Zhang Yi's view, Yuanbao is currently facing fierce homogenization competition. "Doubao, ERNIE Bot, DeepSeek and other products have cultivated certain user habits. ”He said that whether the 1 billion yuan investment can be effective depends on whether the product can integrate AI capabilities into high-frequency scenarios such as WeChat group chats and social sharing, transforming AI from a tool to a social necessity, and truly retaining users attracted by red envelopes. The reporter observed that after the promotion of Yuanbao red envelopes, a large number of red envelope links were shared in multiple WeChat groups, and users also formed "mutual assistance" groups on social media platforms. But in these active communities, almost all simply share red envelope links, rarely extending to the use of AI functions. In other words, whether the platform can successfully guide user interest from "grabbing red envelopes" to continuous use of AI core functions remains to be further observed by the market. (New Society)