Tencent has begun limited testing of Xiaowei, a native AI assistant built directly into WeChat, in a significant step in the company’s push to compete in China’s rapidly evolving artificial intelligence market. The feature is currently rolling out to a small group of users in phases internally.
Xiaowei allows users to interact with WeChat using text and voice commands, enabling them to send messages, make voice calls, change settings and browse mini-programs without the need to manually search through menus. Tencent says the assistant is powered by a mix of proprietary and open source AI models.
The development is especially important given WeChat’s huge ecosystem, which serves around 1.4 billion users and is the center of messaging, payments, shopping, transportation and other daily services in China. Analysts say Tencent’s biggest win is to integrate AI into an existing platform rather than roll out a stand-alone chatbot.
With rivals such as Alibaba and ByteDance ramping up competition, Tencent is ramping up its AI strategy and attracting more investor attention. Industry watchers see AI agents that can do things across applications as the next big evolution in consumer AI services.
Tencent has not disclosed a public launch date, but the testing that is currently taking place indicates that the company is inching closer to providing AI-powered assistance on one of the world’s largest digital platforms.
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