Singles’ Day shopping festival in China introduces AI token packages
BEIJING — 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, reports BritPanorama.
The launch marks the first time that AI token packages have been offered as a significant consumer product category during Singles’ Day, the world’s largest shopping festival originally held on Nov. 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 stated.
This amount 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 the tech research firm Omdia.
Frequent users can run low on credits, he added, making extensive purchases during a sales period “a very reasonable action.”
However, it remains unclear how much the token plans were discounted from normal prices.
The livestream marked Li’s initial sale of AI products, a notable shift from his previous success as the “Lipstick King,” renowned for selling vast volumes of lipstick online.
During the event, he showcased QwenWork token plans, AI-enabled laptops, and workplace devices. Chen Yusen, an Alibaba Group vice president and chief executive of QwenWork, also participated in the broadcast.
Li asked Chen whether AI could be utilized to create a digital avatar of himself to interact with fans around the clock.
While AI couldn’t replace Li, Chen responded, he hoped it could manage everyday tasks for users, allowing them more time with their families.
Alibaba’s Tmall launched an AI Token Center for the festival, providing consumer token packages from Alibaba Cloud, MiniMax, Moonshot AI, and Z.AI, the e-commerce giant announced.
JD.com has introduced an AI token section as well, featuring services from companies such as DeepSeek, Z.AI, and ByteDance’s Volcano Engine.
Sales of AI token plans from Oct. 1 to Oct. 20 reportedly surged by 450% from the previous month, according to Alibaba, while sales of AI personal-computer laptops rose more than 300% year-on-year during the first hour of the Nov. 11 checkout period.
Su noted that the tokens’ relatively long expiry periods could encourage users to stock up, but warned that the rapid evolution of AI products might make consumers hesitant to prepay for services that could become obsolete.
Singles’ Day, which has been running since 2009 to promote consumer spending, generated total revenue of 1.70 trillion yuan ($255 billion) across platforms last year, according to third-party data provider Syntun.
