AI tokens have become loyalty points in China

Chinese businesses are packaging AI access in forms familiar from mobile data and credit-card rewards. A Kimi-branded card offers model usage and agent allowances on spending. Other banks advertise billions of tokens as signup incentives for developers.

China Telecom’s consumer plans start at 9.9 yuan a month for ten million tokens, while its TokenHub offers access to 142 models. Restaurants and cafes are trying smaller promotions: a Beijing dumpling restaurant hands diners computing vouchers, and a bar offers local model access alongside drinks.

The offers do not establish that ordinary consumers think in tokens. Analyst Poe Zhao calls some packages a supply-led experiment; most people still encounter AI as an app or feature rather than a balance to manage.

Cheap compute is becoming a distribution tool. The unresolved commercial question is whether allowances create lasting use or simply provide another promotional currency that customers barely notice.