Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI

2024 is coming to an end. How is this year’s large model battlefield different from the past?

The models are larger and have more modes, but more importantly, the basic models are no longer the hot spots that investors are competing for. The battlefield of the hundreds of models has moved to the application side.

Compared with money-burning model research and development, the application layer is undoubtedly easier to produce results and is certainly more favored by investors.

If it were last year, the large-model products on the application side would inevitably be ridiculed by people, but the market performance is very honest -

Large-model applications are really delicious.

For example, in overseas markets, the AI ​​concept stock with the largest increase this year is neither Nvidia, which is engaged in GPUs, nor Google Meta, which is engaged in models, but an application layer player, AppLovin.

Relying on AI, the market value has increased nearly 8 times in one year

By AppLovin, known as the "AI monster stock" in the investment community, was not a typical AI company at the beginning, but an online application game and advertising technology company.

Since the beginning of this year, AppLovin’s price per share has increased by more than US$300 compared with the beginning of the year, and its market value has exceeded US$110 billion, an increase of nearly 8 times.

In contrast, although NVIDIA's growth is not bad, if you calculate it, the result is less than 200%.

But such a dark horse has been on the verge of selling himself out before.

Compared with the lowest stock price at that time, AppLovin’s current stock price is more than 35 times that of that time.

Why did AppLovin turn around in less than two years?

In the first half of 23, AppLovin, which specializes in games and advertising marketing, was also swept into the AI ​​trend.

However, AppLovin did not build a large model, nor did it roll out common scenarios. Instead, it used AI as a tool to continue doing its own business - digital marketing.

From a timeline perspective, the application of AI is undoubtedly the key to AppLovin’s turnaround.

So, why can AI make the digital marketing that AppLovin focuses on successful?

What we most easily think of is that AI can make the generation of materials such as copywriting, images and even videos in the marketing process more efficient, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

But this is not the core secret of AppLovin’s success.

AppLovin’s key to success is to use the AI ​​tool AXON 2.0 it developed to analyze data and even predict user intentions, so that advertisers and target customers can be matched more accurately.

However, it seems that AppLovin is not the only company using AI for marketing., but only AppLovin is famous, why?

Although AppLovin's AI is at the application layer, it can no longer be realized through the shell of the previous model. Instead, a new "cognitive architecture" needs to be established.

The most important point is that AppLovin has accumulated a large amount of user data in its nearly ten years of marketing activities.

Without this data, no matter how powerful the AI ​​is, it may be powerless when faced with the task of analyzing user characteristics.

So, the accumulation of a large amount of important data and the free ride of AI are the secrets of AppLovin’s success.

Looking at the entire industry, what everyone can see is that AI is already at the center of technology investors’ attention.

But if we are more specific, capital investment in AI is tilting towards applications, and vertical applications are becoming increasingly valuable.

Especially in the field of digital marketing, today when the specific development path of AI is still unclear, AppLovin has proven the feasibility of "AI + marketing" in advance.

Almost at the same time that AppLovin chose AI, on the other side of the world, an established digital marketing company in China also resolutely chose to embrace AI.

AI marketing is coming to fruition in China

Zhewen Internet is a domestic As a listed company that is firmly at the top of the industry, digital marketing is its important business segment. In recent years, Zhewen Internet’s revenue has been in the tens of billions.

Zhewen Internet quickly adjusted its posture after the outbreak of ChatGPT and actively embraced AI+. The first choice was to introduce AI into daily business.

At first, Zhewen Internet’s idea of ​​introducing AI was very simple, which was to use AI to generate content, including text, pictures, videos and other advertising materials, so as to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

This can also be confirmed from the company's statements. Zhewen Internet's gross profit margin has continued to increase since the lowest point of 4.33% in 2022. By the third quarter report of 2024, this data has increased significantly. to 8.66%.

However, this usage is still at the simplest level, even like an outsider of AI. Apart from the immediate efficiency improvement, AI has not created greater incremental value.

However, in the process of continuous integration with AI, the status of AI in the Zhejiang Internet landscape has gradually changed, from being simple and a tool to becoming the center of the stage, integrating into the DNA of corporate development, and becoming the core of the strategy. , Zhewen Internet began to explore more AI commercialization and AI+ paths.

Specifically, Zhewen Internet has launched a performance marketing AI programmatic delivery tool - Paizhi in the field of marketing, which can accurately identify user needs, thereby improving conversion and bringing value to customers.

In addition, in response to the domestic digital marketing environment, Zhewen Internet has also developed a series of AI applications, such as the brand marketing content production tool-Curiosity Feixuo Intelligent Application Collection. At present, this application has been commercialized in the services of Beijing Hyundai, Changan Deep Blue, Li Auto, BYD Auto and other customers.

For example, the Wenshengwen product "HOT TOPIC" has generated more than 6,800 articles since its launch, and the AI ​​video product "Video Qianchuang" has also produced more than 1,800 videos.

Tang Ying, chairman of Zhewen Internet, said that in the next step, Zhewen Internet will continue to improve the application efficiency of AI marketing tools in the production chain and continue to promote the development of marketing agents.

Looking at Zhewen Internet’s AI strategy, the core ideas coincide with those of overseas marketing companies. They all use AI to improve advertising effectiveness, while upgrading and innovating business models, and moving forward in the AI ​​era.

Specifically, in terms of business model, Zhewen Internet’s choice is to focus on vertical models and promote the implementation of AI applications in commercialization.

From the perspective of the entire large model industry, creating a basic model is undoubtedly the ideal of many practitioners.

But the reality is right in front of us. The market space left for the basic model is almost saturated. As a non-technical company, if we choose the basic model, we will have no chance of winning against many mature players.

Therefore, Zhewen Internet’s approach of not rolling out basic models avoids competition with major model manufacturers, which is very wise at the moment.

But not doing model research and development does not mean that it does not need basic models. Zhewen Internet’s choice is to cooperate with mature large model companies. Currently, Zhewen Internet and Circular Intelligence are promoting cooperation on the training of models in the marketing vertical field and the development of enterprise-level applications.

One party holds a large model, and the other smoothes the commercialization path of AI applications. Only by joining forces to make the cake bigger can the realization dilemma of large models be broken.

The model has been obtained through cooperation. What Zhewen Internet needs to do next is to adapt the model to business scenarios and form vertical applications.

But the era of large models that can be turned into applications by just putting a shell on them is gone. Whether it is AppLovin's user matching or Zhewen Internet's tool-based applications, they must do real work.

Among the many tasks, Zhewen Internet believes that the "de-illusionization" of the model is the top priority to achieve application implementation.

From a technical perspective, ways to reduce model hallucinations include RAG, fine-tuning, etc., but no matter what it is, data is an unavoidable topic.

Of course, as a listed company that started out as a marketing company, Zhewen Internet has accumulated a large amount of marketing data.

And based on many years of marketing business experience, Zhewen Internet has complete experience and methodology.

Through the penetration of data screening, knowledge base precipitation, model fine-tuning and other processes, Zhewen Internet has integrated these experiences intoand methodology are “taught” to the model, realizing the effective transfer of knowledge to vertical domain model capabilities.

In this way, the amplifying effect of AI on data advantages has finally come to light, giving Zhewen Internet a unique barrier, which coincides with AppLovin's "success password".

However, objectively speaking, the media environment, user environment, and technical environment in which the two are located are quite different. Therefore, the implementation of the "AppLovin model" in China will lead to the same goal through different paths, or will it lead to a different outcome? In Huainan, it depends on the answers of leading companies in the industry like Zhewen Internet.

However, Zhewen Internet’s ambitions in AI do not stop there.

Not only marketing, but also more "AI+"

Tang Ying, chairman of Zhewen Internet, said that Zhewen Internet’s business “starts with marketing, not just marketing.” This is bound to be the case under the wave of AI.

As the "digital culture flagship" of Zhejiang Cultural Investment, Zhejiang Internet's business will expand from digital marketing to digital culture, and expand the industrial chain around "technology + culture".

In other words, in terms of combining AI, Zhewen Internet not only needs to do "AI+ marketing", but also needs to do more "AI+" business.

When AI is integrated into the cultural industry chain, people’s imagination space is huge.

For example, in Hangzhou, where Zhewen Internet is located, Liangzhu culture is a valuable research object. When combined with AI, can it create an immersive digital experience space that demonstrates the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization? How about telling Chinese stories well?

On this basis, Zhewen Internet can also use AI to create cultural IP and form an assetization of creation, process and transaction. What will ultimately change is the form and inheritance method of cultural presentation, as well as the future Social mode.

Back to reality, Zhewen Internet has made many innovative attempts, even including the extension of products to the C-side, such as e-sports, digital asset trading, overseas social platforms, etc.

From a market perspective, using AI to create more AI business scenarios has a broader business space than simply doing marketing. At the same time, Zhewen Internet’s accumulated resources and endowments in marketing can also empower AI + cultural business efficient expansion.

Finally, let’s go back to Zhewen Internet’s fundamentals—marketing.

The Quantum Think Tank AIGC Advertising Marketing Industry Panorama Report pointed out that the entry of AI will bring changes to the digital marketing field in five major aspects: industrial chain, workflow, production scenarios, delivery effects, and business structure.

To put it more bluntly, in the future, it will be inevitable for the entire industry to be reshaped by AI.

During this process, Zhewen Internet responded quickly enough and its industry accumulation was deep enough, laying down roots for itself in the early stages of the pattern change.

The achievements achieved in AI+ marketing make ZhewenThe Internet has a clearer understanding of the future path, which also gives Zhewen Internet the confidence to enter digital culture.

And in Tang Ying’s words, Zhewen Internet has also made many “point” breakthroughs in digital culture.

In the next step, Zhejiang Internet will connect these points into lines and planes through the exploration of its own digital cultural business and the integration of resources with the parent company Zhejiang Cultural Investment, forming a business similar to the marketing business system.

The prospect of doing so is undoubtedly broad, but it is inevitable that there will be twists and turns. However, in the process of moving forward, one thing will always remain unchanged.

That is, in the AI ​​era, actively embrace technological changes.