On Monday, Tencent’s AI assistant Yuanbao rolled out a new social feature, Yuanbao Groups (元宝派), in beta testing, aiming to deepen the integration of AI into multi-user social interactions and expand real-world use cases. Users can create or join groups and invite friends via WeChat and QQ to experience AI-powered group chats, collaborative tasks, and interactive entertainment activities.
Currently, AI applications have struggled with low user retention and limited usage scenarios. Tencent’s move shows growing efforts among Chinese tech companies to embed AI into social and collaborative settings, potentially shifting competition in the sector from tool-based functions toward scenario-driven applications.
Details: Tencent is taking AI into its comfort zone — social networking — using Yuanbao Groups to see how AI can actually help in group chats, like making things more efficient and adding a sense of companionship, while also testing ideas that could later be built into WeChat.
- Unlike traditional chatbots built around one-on-one interactions, Yuanbao Groups positions AI as a social lubricant that meets practical needs and also responds to people’s desire for emotional connection.
- Combining social networking and AI, users can @Yuanbao within a Yuanbao Group to ask questions, summarize chats, or set reminders. The AI can also help lighten the mood in conversations or start tasks like fitness and study check-ins.
- For fun and collaboration, users can share their screens and hold online meetings. Soon, there will be Watch Together and Listen Together features so people can watch movies, listen to music, and chat about it in real time.
- Users can connect across platforms, with deep integration between WeChat and QQ, two of China’s most popular messaging and social apps. They can invite friends to join by sharing a link or a group ID.
Context: On Jan. 25, Tencent said that starting February 1, it will give out one billion yuan ($140 million) in cash red envelopes through the Yuanbao app. The move ties in with the Lunar New Year to get people involved and also drives traffic to Yuanbao Groups.
- Tencent’s Yuanbao app was launched in May 2024 as Tencent’s standalone AI assistant application built on its Hunyuan large language model.