Chinese AI firms are splurging on ads, report finds, as chatbot market gets crowded | South China Morning Post

Tech giants such as Alibaba and ByteDance along with start-ups spent US$70.2 million in the third quarter to promote generative AI products, report finds

The companies themselves have not published their advertising spending. AppGrowing said that it estimates spending using public data from earnings reports and third-party marketing metrics such as daily active users, fees, ad loads and effective cost per mille. It combines those data points to estimate an advertising platform’s revenue and advertisers’ placement plans for a specific period of time, deducing the ad spend from those, according tot he company, which calls its figures “for reference” only.

The latest numbers have fuelled debate in China over whether domestic AI firms are spending too much too quickly in an effort to monetise their products. Some in the industry worry that too much prioritisation of marketable products over fundamental research could in the long run widen the technology gap with the US.

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ByteDance declined to comment. Moonshot AI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.