Alipay AI features draw 600m interactions during 2024 Five Fortune Chinese New Year Campaign

Alipay reports that its AI features drew nearly 600 million interactions during its signature annual Five Fortune Chinese New Year campaign across 12 days, from 29th January to 9th February.

The campaign encourages consumers to collect digital Five Fortune cards in the Alipay app.

This year, Alipay has introduced for the first time four AI powered experiences for the Five Fortune campaign, namely "AI Theatre," "AI Fortune Hunt," "AI Photo Studio," and "AI Red Packets."

These features enable users to spend fortune cards to create an AI generated video or image, or earn more fortune cards.

In the "AI Theatre," users can upload a photo and take on the role of key characters in classic film scenes, such as works by comedian Stephen Chow.

As of 8th February, this feature had been used to generate 2.3 million personalised clips, allowing users to take centre stage in their own cinematic moments.

The "AI Fortune Hunt" challenge is the most popular means of collecting fortune cards this year.

It invites users to decipher over 100,000 images generated by AI, each with the Chinese character “Fu” (Fortune) hidden inside. As of 8th February, users have discovered over 2.9 billion AI-generated “Fu” characters. 

The "AI Photo Studio” feature transcends physical barriers by bringing friends and family together in shared moments through AI generated group photos with 16 customisable photo templates.

The "AI Red Packets" feature offers users a fun way of sharing best wishes for the new year by utilising AI voice and video synthesis technology to help users create personalised digital red packets with video covers featuring their own avatars.

Launched in 2016, Alipay’s Five Fortune campaign has become a popular part of people’s lives in China during the Chinese New Year holiday period.

Users can collect digital fortune cards through various means, such as scanning the Chinese character “Fu” through the Alipay app's AR scan function, and participating in merchant sub-campaigns.

These cards, which represent good wishes, can be converted into monetary rewards.