"Big Banks" UBS: This year's adoption rate of artificial intelligence agents accelerates, optimistic about Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, and Kuaishou

UBS published a report stating that as model capabilities continue to iterate, 2026 may become a key year for the large-scale adoption of artificial intelligence agents, at which point AI applications will shift from dialogue to action. However, the bank observed a trend of differentiation in application scenarios, with the United States increasingly focusing on enterprise-level applications, while China is ramping up investments in consumer-facing services.

The report noted that major Chinese internet companies launched red envelope activities during the Spring Festival to direct traffic to their AI services, including Tencent (00700.HK) with a total of RMB 1 billion in Yuanbao red envelopes, Alibaba (09988.HK) with a total of RMB 3 billion in Qianwen red envelopes, Baidu (09888.HK) with a total of RMB 500 million in Wenxin red envelopes, and ByteDance's Doubao red envelopes. In the short term, the bank believes this will accelerate the popularity of AI among users, especially in lower-tier cities, and promote users to utilize more AI and intelligent agent features in these native AI applications, such as image and video generation, flash shopping, and other transaction booking services.

In the long term, the bank expects a trend of consolidation in China's AI chatbot market, similar to the market landscape of ChatGPT in the United States. Combining the existing large user base and complete ecosystem of internet giants will help foster consumer-facing AI super applications, becoming a new traffic entry point in the Chinese market.

The bank recently initiated coverage on MiniMax (00100.HK), believing that the company has a good layout and is expected to benefit from the tailwinds of artificial intelligence in China and the global market. The bank also believes that the disruption risk of artificial intelligence in China should be lower than that in the United States. Among internet giants, it is optimistic about Alibaba and Baidu's full-stack AI capabilities, as well as Tencent and Kuaishou (01024.HK) in the field of AI applications