高盛：中国生成式AI应用的商业变现之路（英）

The Top debates on AI software are centered around 1) Monetization, 2) Moat & IP, 3) User cases, and 4) Cost. We have talked to 20+ companies and illustrated how-to-use (exhibit 10-19), and addressed key FAQs1) What is the in this report: progress on AI Monetization? Software vendors have started charging AI software, while looking for a balance between commercialization and new user expansion; 2) What is AI pricing strategy? Annual subscription fee, trade-off between commercialization and user expansion; 3) What are the top user cases? AI search, AI video creativity/ editing, AI productivity favored by ToC users, and Finance/ HR/ Knowledge base/ Procurement are earlier in ToB AI applications; 4) What are the software vendors’ moats? Platform to streamline the working process by integrating AI and software features, and accumulated industry know-how. The emergence of multiple AI models in China has lowered training/ inferencing cost and computing power requirement, while we still see room for cost to further go down with expansion of local AI infrastructure, making AI available to more users. In this note, we provide a summary snapshot of the monetization status of different applications and current capabilities. Read-across to China Software: We view Kingsoft Office (AI Productivity), Kingdee/ Yonyou (AI Enterprise Services), Arcsoft (AI Photography), iFlytek (AI education/ Healthcare), Glodon (AI BIM) early beneficiaries of AI monetization. 1) What is the progress on AI Monetization: The MAU of single ToC AI napplication has reached over 10m units, with paying ratio at 3%~13% (Exhibit 2); The number of single AI software’s enterprise clients target at this ~1,000 unitsyear (Exhibit 3). Overall, the revenue contribution of AI software are still low this year, ranging from single digit to high teens, while we see software vendors view AI as key growth drivers in next few years, with API token fee of AI foundation model continuing to go down. 2) What is the AI pricing strategy: Per the companies, ToC AI tools are priced at nUS$20~US$200/ user per year (Exhibit 1), and AI creation tools are priced Allen Chang +852-2978-2930 | allen.k.chang@gs.com Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C. Verena Jeng +852-2978-1681 verena.jeng@gs.com | Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C. Ting Song +852-2978-6466 ting.song@gs.com | Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C.China Software: Gen-AI apps monetization: Differentiated features, AI agents, and customized knowledge hubs to drive paying ratio11 June 2025 | 5:10PM HKT Goldman Sachs does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision. For Reg AC certification and other important disclosures, see the Disclosure Appendix, or go to www.gs.com/research/hedge.html. Analysts employed by non-US