Tencent’s Pony Ma teases new AI social feature for Yuanbao app

Pony Ma Huateng, founder and CEO of Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, has teased a new artificial intelligence-powered social feature in the company’s latest push to keep pace in China’s intensifying AI race. In an internal address to staff, Ma said Tencent was beta testing a new social tool inside its AI assistant app Yuanbao, and encouraged employees to try it out and help debug the feature, according to Tencent staff who attended the meeting. The feature, known in Chinese as Yuanbao Pai, integrates AI with online social groups, allowing users to interact and collaborate with friends – Tencent’s latest experiment as it expands the capabilities of its consumer-facing AI app. Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tencent’s move comes as competition among China’s Big Tech groups and AI start-ups continues to heat up, with the Shenzhen-based firm still playing catch-up to front runners such as ByteDance and DeepSeek. ByteDance-owned Doubao remained the mainland’s top consumer AI app in December, with 155 million weekly active users in the second week last month, according to data from QuestMobile. That figure was nearly double the 81.56 million recorded by DeepSeek’s eponymous chatbot, which ranked as the market’s No 2 player over the same period. Tencent’s Yuanbao, Ant Group’s Ant A-Fu and Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen app were ranked No 3, 4 and 5, respectively, according to QuestMobile. Ant Group is the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post. Ma also defended Tencent’s measured approach to AI, even as he acknowledged that the emergence of DeepSeek and OpenAI’s ChatGPT had reshaped the trajectory of AI development. “It’s Tencent’s style to advance steadily and surely,” Ma told staff at the annual gathering. He pledged to step up the company’s long-term investment, saying Tencent had already made sweeping upgrades to its infrastructure and talent pool in the field. Tencent’s renewed push has been underscored by its recent recruitment of former OpenAI researcher Vinces Yao Shunyu, who was appointed to lead the company’s AI infrastructure efforts, including large language model development. Yao was named chief AI scientist under the CEO’s office, reporting directly to Tencent president Martin Lau Chi-ping. With Yao’s appointment, Ma said Tencent had shifted its focus towards hiring young, “AI-native” talent, with the goal of “rebuilding Tencent’s AI research and development from the ground up”, according to attendees. On Sunday, Tencent also escalated its consumer AI push by launching a 1 billion yuan (US$137 million) hong bao giveaway campaign through Yuanbao. Ma said he hoped the initiative could replicate the success of WeChat’s red packet feature, which became an overnight sensation during the Spring Festival in 2014.