On June 4, 2026, the first event in the AILink series, The Evolution of Global Growth in the AI Plus Era, concluded in Shenzhen. The event was hosted by Youdao Ads, with Google and AppGrowing invited to participate.
Focused on taking AI products global, the event brought together experienced practitioners from Youdao Ads, Google, and AppGrowing, alongside leading companies in the sector. Speakers shared practical user acquisition approaches designed to deliver high conversion rates and value across four themes: cross-sector marketing, the wave of global expansion, integrated brand and performance marketing, and the reinvention of creative production.
Here is a quick look at the practical insights shared at the event.
Aasta Liu, Industry Manager for Key New Customers in Greater China at Google, began by noting that overseas user behavior continues to evolve, with search increasingly moving toward multimodal formats such as images and video. Through advanced AI technology, Google is changing how content is created and marketed.
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A productivity revolution in the AIGC era: AI-generated content is taking production beyond professionally generated and user-generated content into an intelligent production phase, significantly improving the efficiency of producing text, images, and short videos at scale.
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Hardware and ecosystem development: Aasta introduced a new AI ecosystem centered on Gemini models, together with the Android XR operating system and Project Aura smart glasses.
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A powerful AI combination in Google Ads: The presentation highlighted combining Search campaigns with Performance Max campaigns. According to the data presented, advertisers using PMax can achieve conversion increases of up to 27% in relation to cost-per-action or return-on-ad-spend performance, helping them attract traffic and capture conversions across the full customer journey.
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Additional support for Chinese brands: For brands expanding overseas, Google's new-customer team offers dedicated end-to-end support, including website optimization, code implementation, campaign planning, and optimization for scaling.
Joyce Cui, Industry Manager for New Customer Mobile Business in Greater China at Google, examined global generative AI market trends, opportunities in popular categories, and the factors behind leading companies' success.
She emphasized that the AI market is expected to exceed the trillion-US-dollar level around 2030. Seventy-five percent of consumers believe AI will provide additional value, and 25% of users are willing to pay for subscriptions to AI features. She identified four major trends in AI app development.
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Content factories: Lower barriers to creation allow ideas to be turned directly into finished products.
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Hyper-personalization: AI becomes a creative partner that understands individual tastes in personalized fitness, travel, interior design, and other areas.
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Productivity tools: AI becomes a powerful way to improve everyday office efficiency.
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Autonomous workflows: AI evolves from a copilot offering advice into an intelligent agent capable of independently completing complex tasks.
She also examined popular categories, noting that image and video tools and social communication are currently mainstream AIGC categories. She analyzed the user profiles, monetization, and traffic characteristics of AI Q&A, productivity tools, virtual companionship, and interactive intelligent-agent products.
Addressing challenges such as high user acquisition costs and difficulties building user understanding of AI products overseas, Siri Luo, Business Lead for the AI Sector in Overseas Advertising at Youdao Ads, shared approaches developed through more than eight years of global expansion experience.
Siri explained that Youdao Ads has developed an AI Plus Golden Triangle global, full-channel marketing service system built on technology, resources, and content. Within that system, it has developed a creator-centered approach combining creator marketing and performance advertising to gain three uses from a single piece of content.
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First use: Customize a KOX creator portfolio for each promotional stage, using authentic scenarios to build credibility for the brand.
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Second use: Amplify traffic through native advertising formats such as YouTube Partnership Ads and TikTok Spark Ads.
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Third use: Re-edit and creatively adapt high-quality creator content for in-feed advertising, reducing cost per action or CPA.
Through the combined capabilities of its three proprietary platforms, iMagicBox, InfunEase, and EaseBoost, together with standardized formulas for successful creatives, Youdao Ads helps developers overcome traffic barriers and achieve rapid global growth that integrates brand building, advertising performance, and sales across multiple categories.
Continuing the discussion of AI growth, Abby, Senior Overseas Industry Analyst at AppGrowing, explored creative-driven targeting.
She noted that although overseas AI app user acquisition activity in 2026 was growing strongly year on year, sequential trends were becoming more cautious. Creative quality is increasingly determining how traffic is allocated. Advertisers therefore need to move AI beyond a production resource and turn it into a strategic marketing capability, building a comprehensive AI-driven growth system.
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Insights: Use AppGrowing International's AI strategy and visual analysis capabilities to analyze competing creatives precisely and turn extensive user acquisition data into forward-looking growth strategies.
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Production: Generate differentiated creative scripts with one click through AI strategy analysis, and use AI clip recreation to repurpose content efficiently.
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Strategy: Build proprietary enterprise AI creative assets to compete effectively within multimodal content distribution. By using AI to outperform AI, advertisers aim to gain a decisive algorithmic advantage.
Using Dance AI as an example, Abby demonstrated how AI strategy analysis and recreation features can break down the structure of successful creatives, generate scripts attuned to online audiences, and efficiently reuse frequently appearing clips, helping brands improve results across the full brand and performance marketing journey.
After the presentations, participants discussed three key areas in depth: localization practices, user acquisition strategy optimization, and directions for product innovation. Grounded in practical acquisition for AI products expanding overseas, the event developed actionable strategies and connected resources across the industry through in-person exchanges.
Swipe to view more highlights from the event.
We look forward to exploring new paths to growth with more like-minded AI partners through the AILink series. Follow our official WeChat account for practical insights, industry developments, and the earliest updates on the next AILink event.