Chinese New Year shopping gets an AI makeover. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Nick Kareishi. Today marks the start of the Lunar New Year, a major celebration in China and other parts of Asia, including South Korea and Vietnam, with 2026 known as the Year of the Firehorse. As with many traditional

festivals around the world, it's become a major retail event as well as a cultural phenomenon.

This year, China's artificial intelligence companies have been splashing the cash in what's

being called the Lunar New Year AI War. Duncan Clark is an author and an expert on China's retail and

tech sector. Duncan, hi. Hi, Nick. So just how important is today for Chinese retailers?

This is a very important day because it's the evening and the day, the first few days of the

Chinese New Year. And traditionally, this is the battleground,

particularly for technology companies

that are trying to promote their latest offerings.

If you remember a year ago,

we saw the Deep Seek moment when China shocked,

not only China, but the world with this advanced AI product

that came out.

Now, this year, I would say it's the year of AI

merging with consumption. So it's

becoming much more of a shopping-driven experience as well. And we're seeing billions of dollars

are being poured in to compete for customers in the next few days. I want to focus on Alibaba and

this new AI model, Quinn 3.5. What are the selling points, according to Alibaba, given the fact that they face

tough competition, especially from Bight Dance? Absolutely. So Alibaba has been around quite a long time,

so it's not a new company compared to, say, bite dance, but it is completely dominant in e-commerce

and very active in other areas too, from entertainment,

to travel to payments. What AI and Quinn represents for them is the opportunity to bring

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