China’s AI-influencer gold rush is booming — but the moat is paper thin

AI creators are cashing in. For how long?

A wave of Chinese AI influencers is suddenly lucrative. Small- and mid-tier creators are posting monthly screenshots of five‑ and six‑figure earnings, and it has been reported that some niche accounts can command six‑figure fees for a single sponsored article. Big tech’s marketing machines are behind much of this: Tencent (腾讯) said marketing and promotional spending jumped 44% to ¥11.3 billion in Q1 2026, and Alibaba (阿里巴巴) described the quarter as more “sowing” than “harvest” as it pours resources into AI products. But popularity and paychecks hide a critical fragility. Who owns the tool — the creator or the vendor?

Numbers, product churn and shrinking ad value

The market data help explain why creators feel both empowered and precarious. QuestMobile data show monthly active users for AI‑native apps reached roughly 440 million by March 2026; Doubao (豆包) reportedly has 345 million MAU, Qianwen (千问) 166 million and DeepSeek 127 million. By comparison, Bilibili (哔哩哔哩/B站) reported about 376 million MAU in Q1. Yet creators face mounting headwinds: vendors are baking tutorials and one‑click features into apps, and product updates often outpace independent tutorials. It has been reported that CPM for mid-tier creators fell about 40% over 18 months — traffic remains, but each impression is worth less.

Case studies: trendy, replicable, replaceable

Look at the variety of creator strategies. “秋芝2046” has leveraged a product‑review approach to grow into the upper tier and land corporate deals; “荒蛋记录员” — an AI‑generated cat persona — sold playful, brandable scenarios that advertisers could plug into. But many formats are easily copied and quickly obsolete when vendors turn a once‑advanced feature into a one‑click default. It has been reported that on platforms like Xiaohongshu (小红书) there were only about 590 AI‑labelled bloggers in 2025, a sliver of overall creators, meaning demand can quickly outstrip sustainable supply of quality influence.

So what next for creators and platforms?

The short answer: differentiate or disappear. As basic how‑to content becomes redundant, creators who survive will be the ones with distinct viewpoints, personalities or IP — the memorable debates and characters that outlast a product cycle. Meanwhile, geopolitical pressures matter too: export restrictions on advanced chips and models have nudged Chinese firms to prioritize domestic user acquisition and front‑end experiences, fueling the ad deluge that props up today’s creator economy. The boom is real. But is it a durable ecosystem — or a vendor‑driven bubble that will reward only whoever controls the product and the user habit?