Tencent Tests AI Assistant Inside WeChat in China

Tencent said Monday it is testing an AI assistant named Xiaowei inside Weixin, the Chinese version of WeChat. Users can interact with the assistant through text or voice commands, communicate with contacts, and open mini-programs that run inside the app. The company described the rollout as small-scale and did not provide details on Xiaowei's capabilities or the underlying AI models.

Weixin together have more than 1.4 billion monthly active users, most of them in China. People use the app for messaging, payments, restaurant bookings, and other daily tasks. Tencent executives have considered deeper AI integration into the platform since last year. Investors have watched for signs that the move could create new revenue streams.

The test is part of Tencent's effort to compete in China's artificial intelligence market. The company also develops its own AI models under the Hunyuan brand and hired an OpenAI researcher as chief AI scientist earlier this year.