Invisible and intangible computing power services are becoming products that can be ordered.
During this "Double 11", the e-commerce platform introduced a new independent product category - AI Token. Large model manufacturers such as Zhipu, MiniMax, Alibaba Cloud, Qianwen, etc. have settled in and opened stores, and many consumers have had a taste of "hoarding word elements".
What does it mean for words to be put on the e-commerce platform? How to buy word elements? Will it be as simple as charging water and phone bills? Which groups are paying for tokens?
How to buy?
——You can pay as you go, or you can pay monthly or yearly, and there are many "Double 11" discounts.
How to buy word elements?
As the e-commerce platform puts word categories on the shelves, the operation is becoming simple. On e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, users can search for "Token" to enter the corresponding interface, where a number of mainstream large-scale model manufacturers are gathered, covering services such as membership subscriptions and word element recharge, and can be purchased in one stop.
It is understood that Tmall launched the Token recharge center on September 3, and so far it has been connected to DeepSeek, Alibaba Cloud, Zhipu, Kimi and other manufacturers; MiniMax has opened its first official brand flagship store, and Qianwen Office, Step Star, etc. have already settled in the center. The Token Recharge Center collects various model subscription packages, including periodic subscription packages and pay-as-you-go recharge plans, and supports two delivery methods: card secret or direct recharge.
"We found that consumers will search on the platform to see if there is a suitable Token plan. Now we put relevant products on the platform through a standardized e-commerce transaction system, so that consumers can complete consumption on the e-commerce platform more conveniently like recharging phone bills or buying memberships." said Tmall 3C Digital General Manager Si Dengyu.
Judging from the current market situation, there are two main ways for ordinary consumers to purchase word elements: one is to buy pay-as-you-go recharge coupons, which are similar to phone bills, and you can buy them after they are used up; the other is to subscribe for a fixed monthly or yearly amount.
Word units are the smallest data units that large AI models can recognize and process. They can be understood as the "number of words" in the AI world. Every time we ask questions to AI or use AI to generate content, we are calling word units. The reporter learned during the interview that previously, word purchase was mainly for professional developers, requiring users to understand professional terms such as API Key and console, and to place orders on the respective platforms of large model manufacturers. The entrance to e-commerce brings Ciyuan one step closer to ordinary consumers.
At major e-commerce promotions such as "Double 11", preferential activities also make the price of Ci Yuan packages more attractive. The reporter checked on an e-commerce platform on November 5 and found that the official website price of Qianwen AI Lite monthly card is 60 yuan, and the event discount price is 19.5 yuan; the Qoder professional version monthly card official website price is 59 yuan, and the event discount price is 19.9 yuan. Data shows that on the first day of "Double 11" sales, the transaction volume of Taobao's word category increased by 450% month-on-month.
On November 2, JD.com’s 3C digital procurement and sales live broadcast room also brought more than ten large model token packages such as JD Cloud, DeepSeek, GLM, Volcano Seed, and MiniMax. Over 1 billion tokens were given out in the first hour of the broadcast, and the sales of token package products increased 20 times month-on-month within 2 hours.
"Competition among large models is currently fierce, and manufacturers have adopted a tiered charging strategy, that is, only charging heavy users." Pan Helin, a member of the Information and Communication Economics Expert Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, believes that the launch of Ciyuan on the e-commerce platform shows that C-end demand has also begun to emerge.
Not only online, but also offline exploration and practice are constantly innovating. In government service centers in certain areas, the Ciyuan service window is located next to the water and electricity window, making it easier for companies to purchase services. "Using Ci Yuan in the future may be like using water and electricity, which is very common for enterprises. Since special windows can be set up for water and electricity, why can't Ci Yuan give it a try?" A relevant person in charge of the local government services and data administration said in an interview with the media.
Who is buying?
——Family users, learning and research users, one-person companies, etc.
Who is buying word elements?
Tmall provides user portraits: mainly individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises with clear needs for AI use, such as home users, learning and research users, and one-person companies. With the rapid iteration of AI, Ciyuan's consumer groups have continued to expand, starting from geeks, to office white-collar workers, and then to ordinary consumers who are passionate about technology.
Many users may have experienced that simply checking information, modifying text, asking questions, etc. can be solved through the free version of the large model, but it may not be enough to generate videos, calculate data, or perform a large number of high-intensity operations.
On the one hand, the average daily number of lexical element calls in China continues to rise. According to data from the National Data Bureau, in March this year, China's average daily word usage exceeded 140 trillion, and it will be 100 billion at the beginning of 2024, an increase of more than a thousand times in two years. A report jointly released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and other institutions shows that the average daily consumption of domestic words in June this year was about 500 trillion.
On the other hand, application scenarios are becoming increasingly complex, and the free model cannot cover some high-intensity usage needs. "I directly subscribed to several large models, and on average I spent one to two thousand yuan a month." Xiao Ding is a doctoral student at a university in Wuhan, Hubei Province. He studies algorithms and writes tens of thousands of lines of programming code. Paying for AI has become a necessity for his daily study and research. "Subscriptions are calculated by word units, which is equivalent to packaging the word unit usage into a fixed amount. I usually submit my needs and opinions, and let AI write the code and realize the ideas bit by bit. This process will consume a lot of word units, but what may have taken a month to do before can now be completed in a few days, and the efficiency has been greatly improved." He said.
When visiting the e-commerce live broadcast room, Chen Yusen, CEO of Qianwen Office, demonstrated multiple application scenarios of AI in daily life and work: parents can use AI to organize their children's homework and test papers, and create targeted training games; live broadcast operators can hand over live broadcast playback and barrages to AI to generate business analysis reports with one click; fishing enthusiasts can generate and launch a global fishing map that supports multiple visits with just a simple conversation... To achieve these effects, consumers need to pay for tokens.
As the smallest information unit for large-scale model processing information, word elements have the characteristics of being measurable, priceable, and tradable in the intelligent era. "Token is not only the value anchor of the intelligent era, but also the "settlement unit" that connects technology supply and business demand, providing quantifiable possibilities for the implementation of business models." Liu Liehong, director of the National Data Administration, said previously. Centering on the invocation, distribution and settlement of word elements, a new value system is evolving at an accelerated pace and has become an important path for the artificial intelligence industry to realize its potential.
How to see it?
——The threshold is lower, but putting it on the shelves is only the first step.
What does it mean for all parties that Ci Yuan is listed on the e-commerce platform?
Look at the manufacturer - many large model manufacturers have expanded the word package from the exclusive channel of the official website to the e-commerce platform. The core is to reach a large number of C-end consumers to build brand awareness. "For large model manufacturers, the e-commerce platform is not only a channel to facilitate transactions, but also a window for C-end consumers. Every shopping search and page view by a consumer is an opportunity for model manufacturers to enter the consumer's sight." An industry insider analyzed.
Looking at the platform - the launch of new AI categories is not only a response to consumer demand, but also a new starting point for future development. "For Tmall, the new category of AI is becoming a new consumer demand. The computing power quota that originally belonged to the developer's backend has become a product that can be ordered directly for the first time." A relevant person in charge of Tmall said that in the future, the platform and large model manufacturers will design packages based on different needs. Just like beauty brands match sets according to groups, more product combinations will be presented, turning AI usage needs into products that are easier to choose.
Look at consumers - the barriers to use are lowering. After large model manufacturers enter the e-commerce store, users only need to purchase packages in the e-commerce store, complete payment, and log in with one click to bind their personal account. At the same time, technical concepts are replaced with common terms such as monthly cards, annual cards, and continuous subscriptions. Overall, from targeting professional developers to entering e-commerce platforms and targeting C-end consumers, Ciyuan package products are constantly developing towards a lower threshold.
Will payment become a trend in the future? "There is still a long way to go for Ci Yuan to go to the C-end. The current main purpose is to try to broaden the sales channels of Ci Yuan." Pan Helin believes that paying and free for Ci Yuan will exist for a long time, because at this stage, competition among large models is fierce, and users need to be accumulated in the free model. Relatively speaking, B-side enterprises and C-side developers have a greater demand for word units, and ordinary users may not need to purchase word units for a long time.
Industry insiders analyze that in terms of revenue structure, at this stage, the vast majority of AI companies basically rely on B-side corporate services for revenue, while the overall proportion of C-side subscription revenue is still low, and the mass user payment conversion rate is at a low level. In comparison, users in ordinary casual chat scenarios are less willing to pay, and their payment behavior is concentrated in productivity scenarios such as content creation, programming, and in-depth data study.
In addition, for word elements to truly enter the mass market, putting them on shelves is only the first step. For example, some users found that the word units consumed in different models for the same paragraph of text are significantly different, each company's billing rules are different, and it is difficult to convert between packages. Many industry insiders said that from being put on the shelves to reaching the public, Ciyuan services still need to deal with issues such as measurement and accounting, pricing mechanism, safety control and compliance governance.
"People's Daily Overseas Edition" (November 10, 2026, Page 11)
Reporter Li Jie
