By Sophie Yu and Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING, Nov 3 (Reuters) – The Singles’ Day shopping extravaganza in China unveiled a new attraction this year as it graduates beyond a long association with cut-price cosmetics and home appliances: computing credits used to access artificial intelligence tools.
The launch is the first time AI token packages have been offered as a significant consumer product category during Singles’ Day, the world’s largest shopping festival originally held on November 11 each year.
Top livestreamer Austin Li sold 100,000 monthly memberships of Alibaba’s QwenWork office AI service within half an hour during a Taobao Live broadcast on Monday, the company said.
That is equivalent to about 2 trillion AI tokens, or units of text processed by AI models.
“Chinese consumers are now very accustomed to using AI productivity tools,” said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at tech research firm Omdia.
Frequent users can run short of credits, he added, which makes extensive purchases during a sales period “a very reasonable action”.
It was unclear how much the token plans were discounted from normal prices, however.
FIRST SALE OF AI PRODUCTS FOR ‘LIPSTICK KING’
The livestream was the first sale of AI products by Li, who earned the “Lipstick King” moniker for amassing a huge following while selling vast volumes of lipstick online.
It showcased QwenWork token plans, AI-enabled laptops and workplace devices. Chen Yusen, an Alibaba Group vice president and chief executive of QwenWork, also made an appearance.
Li asked Chen if AI could be used to build a digital avatar of himself to chat with fans around the clock.
While AI could not replace Li, Chen responded, he hoped it could handle everyday tasks for users, freeing them to spend time with their families.
Alibaba’s Tmall has launched an AI Token Center for the festival, offering consumer token packages from Alibaba Cloud, MiniMax, Moonshot AI and Z.AI, the e-commerce giant said.
JD.com has also introduced an AI token section bringing together services from companies including DeepSeek, Z.AI and ByteDance’s Volcano Engine.
Sales of AI token plans from October 1 to October 20 soared 450% from the previous month, Alibaba said, while sales of AI personal-computer laptops surged more than 300% year-on-year in the first hour of the Nov. 11 checkout period.
Su said the tokens’ relatively long expiry periods could spur users to stock up, but warned that rapid changes in AI products may make consumers wary of prepaying for services at risk of being replaced or retired.
Singles’ Day, which has run since 2009 in an effort to spur consumer spending, earned total revenue of 1.70 trillion yuan ($255 billion) across platforms last year, according to third party data provider Syntun.
($1=6.6723 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista and Sophie Yu; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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