The drive for AI monetisation among Chinese tech companies has become a battle over “delivering measurable business value” rather than raw technical performance, according to Alex Yao, head of China equity research at JPMorgan.

China’s AI landscape was rapidly consolidating from a fragmented “hundred-model” battle down to a smaller group of globally competitive leading players, particularly those that could transform consumer-facing features into reliable enterprise-grade infrastructure, Yao said in a recent interview with the South China Morning Post.

Although Chinese AI models still lagged slightly behind top-tier US counterparts on certain performance metrics, Yao said this gap was not the decisive factor for domestic commercialisation. This is due to the lack of access to US models within China and the increasing importance of practical utility.

“You don’t need a model with the intellect of Einstein,” Yao said. “Once a model reaches the capability of a strong master’s-level graduate, it can start doing real work.”

Yao, who also serves as JPMorgan’s co-head of Asia-Pacific technology, media and telecoms research, said concerns over Chinese consumers’ historical reluctance to pay for software may be overstated, arguing that adoption hinged primarily on “clear, demonstrable value”.

Monetisation strategies are already taking shape. In early May, ByteDance introduced subscription tiers for its Doubao app, ranging from 68 yuan (US$10) to 500 yuan per month.