AI News Feed
Market watch
Unitree Pursues Self-Evolving Robots as Tesla, Figure Report Humanoid AdvancesNvidia’s AI Financing Role Faces First Major Stress Test as Neocloud Shares and Credit Conditions WeakenTechRadar review: VZMORE AX9 Max AI mini PC pairs strong CPU with premium priceLetta tutorial builds a stateful engineering copilot on editable memory blocksAndroid Authority Walkthrough Shows How to Strip Google Photos of Unsolicited Alerts and Auto-CreationsBaidu Health says AI service MAU tops 50 million, launches Good Doctor Matrix and Health Camera
Unitree Pursues Self-Evolving Robots as Tesla, Figure Report Humanoid AdvancesNvidia’s AI Financing Role Faces First Major Stress Test as Neocloud Shares and Credit Conditions WeakenTechRadar review: VZMORE AX9 Max AI mini PC pairs strong CPU with premium priceLetta tutorial builds a stateful engineering copilot on editable memory blocksAndroid Authority Walkthrough Shows How to Strip Google Photos of Unsolicited Alerts and Auto-CreationsBaidu Health says AI service MAU tops 50 million, launches Good Doctor Matrix and Health Camera
Companies

Alipay AI Payment and Guanzha Launch PAYATHON 2026 With 200,000 Yuan Prize Pool

Alipay AI Payment and Guanzha launch PAYATHON 2026, inviting AI developers to add payments for 200,000 yuan prize pool.

AI News Feed · 2026-10-24 20:42

Registration runs until Dec. 1, and the offline finals are scheduled for Dec. 26. The event has five tracks: Application and Skill as the two main tracks, centered on Vibe Pay and Skill Pay, plus Token Pay, Machine Pay and Agent Pay, which focus on usage-based billing, continuous subscriptions and transactions between machines and agents.

Organizers will assess product completeness and technical implementation. They will also weigh commercialization performance and real user payments as key criteria. Alipay AI Payment described the hackathon as part of its developer-first product strategy, which aims to lower barriers to commercializing AI products so developers spend less effort on collection, delivery and pricing.

Some developers have already tested paid models inside the ecosystem. A self-media blogger named Snail and his team built Blogger Farm, a workflow product for topic selection, scriptwriting and cover production. It attracted more than 1,000 registered users and more than 300 bloggers but had no paying users, according to the report. The team tried multiple ways to add payment functions over 159 days.

The turning point came after the team found Aicha Shou, a collection tool launched by Alipay AI Payment and Guanzha. Using a guide written for AI and Codex to write code, the team completed integration and launched in 73 minutes. It soon received 10 orders, with credits automatically credited and no manual processing needed, the report said.

“Bloggers have a lifecycle and may stop being popular in three to five years, but a product can still generate income while I sleep,” Snail said, according to Leiphone. The image-and-text generation tool Redink received nine orders and more than 1,282 yuan in transaction value. Developer Canghe explored charging mechanisms around products including CodexGuide and GPT-Image2 and accumulated more than 500 real orders.

The hackathon asks developers to bring projects in progress, test demand and try charging users, with the goal of securing a first order. The organizers said the event is intended to connect technical creation with business practice and let developers test payment integration and operations.

Editor's Summary

Alipay AI Payment and Guanzha launched PAYATHON 2026 on Oct. 24, with registration open until Dec. 1 and finals on Dec. 26. The hackathon offers a 200,000 yuan prize pool and judges AI apps, Skills and Agents on commercialization and real user payments. Developers cited in the report have begun receiving paid orders after integrating payment tools.