"From computing power to applications, 2026 Capital is heavily focused on the new paradigm of AI marketing."

How AI applications achieve commercial monetization at scale is becoming a hot topic in the current capital market. Recently, a series of landmark events have brought strong signals: Several domestic large-scale models and AI application companies have successfully launched IPOs in Hong Kong, validating their business models and sustainable profit paths; Smart body startup company Manus was acquired by Meta, Musk open-sourced the X platform recommendation algorithm, Walmart deeply integrated generative AI into the shopping process, and other industry dynamics are continuing to ferment, making the secondary market see the huge potential of AI application explosion - related concepts such as GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) / GEM (Generative Engine Marketing) have responded by rising; The most significant commercial annotation comes from OpenAI's key decision in January 2026: announcing the testing of ads in the free version and Go version of ChatGPT. This is not only revenue exploration for AI giants, but also marks a fundamental shift in how users obtain information, with a newly emerging market driven by generative AI accelerating. For the marketing industry, this means a deep restructuring of scenarios: when traffic entry shifts from search boxes to dialogue boxes, the entire industry's allocation mechanism, technological architecture, and ecosystem roles will undergo a systemic change. The Era of AI Advertising Has Arrived For the average user, the insertion of ads by OpenAI may just be a minor adjustment in user experience. When a user asks which wireless headphones Beijing Zhidemai Technology has released recently? in a conversation, the system may naturally embed a recommendation in the response and label it as sponsored by the brand. However, from an industry perspective, the traditional Internet acquires information through keyword search, while the generative AI era shifts towards natural language interaction. This surface-level change is triggering a profound innovation in the global traffic allocation mechanism. On one hand, there is the migration of traffic entry and the landing of monetization channels. Data shows that as of December 2025, ChatGPT's monthly active users reached 880 million, Google AI Overviews covered over 2 billion users, and domestic applications like DouBao, DeepSeek, and QianWen all exceeded 100 million monthly actives. User behavior studies show that over 80% of users have formed the habit of obtaining consumption information through AI, with nearly 35% engaging in daily high-frequency interactions. AI has become the new hub of traffic distribution, and this concentration of attention makes a brand's position in AI responses crucial. Brands that are not in the top answer sequence signify a missed opportunity to compete for AI traffic entry. Adobe Analytics data shows that during Black Friday in 2025, AI-related traffic to US e-commerce websites increased by 600% year-on-year. This growth rate confirms the reality of traffic entry migration. On the other hand, GEO/GEM brings about a new paradigm shift in advertising marketing. From a technological standpoint, the essence of GEO is "precise intent capture," where traditional SEM relies on keyword bidding, and brands compete for ranking positions on search result pages; while GEM is the natural integration of ads as answers in a conversational context. OpenAI's ad design validates this logic: when a user asks about the recipe for a Mexican dinner, ChatGPT will suggest cooking ingredients and even provide purchase links, supporting further questions like can I use low-fat cheese?" Industry test data shows that this interactive advertising approach can triple conversion rates compared to traditional SEM. Unlike traditional SEO focused on increasing page rankings, GEO's core goal is to embed brand information in the search results of large models and ultimately become part of AI answers. This requires brands to not only optimize keywords but also deeply understand user intent based on AI and provide appropriate solutions at the right moment. In terms of technical requirements, GEO requires brand content to have three key features: semantic recognizability (understandable by models), structural credibility (referencable by models), and interactive continuity (providing value in multi-turn dialogues). This increasing technological threshold is fostering a new industry ecosystem service providers who can connect brands with AI platforms, understand generative logic, and build delivery channels, are becoming the infrastructure providers for the new era. The traditional SEO/SEM market is valued at around $1.04 trillion, giving rise to global digital advertising giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon. With AI bringing industry changes through GEO/GEM, market participants are now on the same starting line. Those who have the technological reserves and resource endowment may become leaders in the new AI advertising era. AI Applications Truly Enter the "Year of Investment" The underlying significance of the ChatGPT ad insertion event lies in realizing the monetization of AI traffic and the industrial transformation of AI advertising marketing, marking a significant transition for the entire AI application industry from the "capital injection phase" to the "commercial monetization phase." This transition not only means monetization for C-side traffic but also signifies the emergence of AI marketing industry explosion with GEO/GEM in B-side applications. Industry data supports this judgment. According to industry statistics, the global application market size exceeded $300 billion in 2025, with China leading at a growth rate of 45%. From an industry logic standpoint, as competition intensifies in the underlying large model technology, it is the application layer innovation that truly reaches users and generates business value. The development of GEM and GEO is a practical verification of AI application commercialization capabilities they not only demonstrate the reconstructive ability of AI applications on traditional industry chains but also present a path for AI applications to create new value spaces. Specifically in the GEO industry, according to the "2025 China GEO Industry Development Report," the global GEO market size is expected to reach $24 billion in 2026, and is expected to grow to $100 billion by 2030 with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 53%. From an investment perspective, AI applications are currently receiving enthusiastic attention from the capital market. After leading Chinese large model companies KNOWLEDGE ATLAS and MiniMax landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in early January, they received enthusiastic market attention, both surpassing the $100 billion Hong Kong dollar market value, with market optimism towards the AI application scene leading to a large influx of funds into related theme ETFs, with the gaming media ETF seeing an increase of over 30%. Changjiang Research believes that AI applications are expected to achieve a breakthrough in both the C-side and B-side in 2026, recommending to pay attention to the trends of leading enterprises in scene placement. Guosen stated that the technology market is expected to shift from computing power infrastructure to the application layer, with the commercialization pace of AI applications expected to accelerate. The logic behind the acceleration of AI applications is that with the formation of super traffic portals, user habits are shifting from "inputting keywords to search for web pages" to "directly asking AI for answers." According to Gartner's predictions, by 2026, approximately 25% of global traditional search engine traffic will shift to AI tools, providing fertile ground for GEO growth. Furthermore, the rapid increase in penetration rate is also a key logic for investing in AI applications. In the "Opinions on Deepening the Implementation of the 'AI +' Action Plan" announced last year, it was proposed that by 2027, AI would be widely and deeply integrated into six major focus areas, with the adoption rate of new-generation intelligent terminals, intelligent bodies, and other applications surpassing 70% by 2030, and exceeding 90%. The explosive nature of the GEO market stems from its replacement effect on traditional marketing models and the rapid increase in AI search penetration rates. AI Advertising, Technological Layout of Chinese Enterprises In this era of AI advertising paradigm shift, the marketing industry has an opportunity for reconstruction. However, not all companies can comprehend the "new grammar" of GEM, let alone reconstruct their entire advertising system. Some Chinese enterprises have already made early layouts. Leading AI marketing technology company Titanium Dynamic, through its marketing multi-intelligent agent Navos Marketing Multi-Agent, has established a first-mover advantage in the GEM track. Navos is positioned as an intelligent assistant that truly understands marketing intents, comprehends GEM structure syntax, and can generate strategies in a companionable manner. Powered by Titanium's self-developed "TitanExtreme" large model, Navos has the ability to deeply understand user intent, semantic scenarios, and advertising structures. Specifically, Navos can generate structured advertising materials based on real-time marketing data and industry experience - meaning generating high-quality materials based on industry best practices and providing actionable marketing strategies. Whether it's context analysis for different categories or content variants for multilingual markets, Navos can complete the entire chain from semantic understanding to strategy generation. It understands not only "how to invest" but also "how to be prioritized, called, and reached by large models in the GEM context." In practice, Navos uses natural language interaction with low operating barriers. For example, when a user asks "Is there an AI tool with multilingual support?" Navos will output suggestions for "static card ads" suitable for ChatGPT contexts and recommend talking points; when a user asks, "Which is better, AI customer service or traditional customer service?", the system can generate a combination solution that caters to both long-form GEM communication and static materials. In the future, users may be able to generate advertising strategies tailored for search, social media, and AI applications through Navos with just a sentence. This output not only lowers the initial barrier for companies to enter the GEM scene but also establishes a closed loop between materials and strategies, significantly enhancing deployment efficiency and practical implementation capabilities. Supporting all of this is the real marketing data and frontline experience Titanium Dynamic has accumulated over the years on a global scale. By 2025, Titanium Dynamic has served over 100,000 advertisers, with business covering more than 200 countries and regions worldwide, reaching over 80% of China's overseas major clients, including Alibaba, TikTok, Temu, KuLo Games, MiHoyo, and other leading enterprises. More importantly, these data and client reserves can naturally transition to the GEM scene. The core requirement of GEM ads is to precisely push content to the most relevant users semantically, and Titanium Dynamic has helped customers conduct billions of material tests, A/B experiments, and user crowd matching on major global media platforms, creating real, clear, and highly contextual marketing data assets. This comprehensive ability of "technology + data + ecosystem" is manifested in the ability to analyze mainstream AI platform algorithms, anti-attribution capabilities, rapid productization capabilities, and customer stickiness through market positioning. These elements constitute the core competitiveness of enterprises in the GEM era. For the capital market, this means that the investment logic is transitioning from "technological concepts" to "application implementation." Enterprises that understand AI application scenarios early, build technological capabilities, and complete ecosystem layouts are standing at the starting point of a new industrial cycle.