Chinese Tech Giant Tencent Restructures Ai Product Portfolio As Competition Heats Up

Tencent Holdings has made sweeping changes to its artificial intelligence (AI) product portfolio, as the Chinese internet giant doubles down on efforts to stay competitive in this fast-developing sector.

The Shenzhen-based social-media and video-gaming powerhouse recently incorporated several apps – including QQ Browser, keyboard tool Sogou Pinyin and learning assistant Ima – into the firm’s Cloud & Smart Industries Group (CSIG), from their previous home at the Platform & Content Group, according to a report by Chinese digital media outlet The Paper.

That followed the previous transfer of AI chatbot Yuanbao to CSIG from the firm’s Technology Engineering Group.

A Tencent representative on Friday confirmed the company’s reshuffle of its AI product portfolio.

That revamp is expected to help Tencent bolster its AI business amid the rapid developments being pursued by internet peers like Alibaba Group Holding and Baidu, as well as innovative start-ups such as DeepSeek. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

The reshuffle reflects a shift in Tencent’s AI strategy, as the company sharpens its focus on product experience and user feedback, according to Zhang Yi, founder and chief analyst at consultancy iiMedia.

“Unlike smaller start-ups, Tencent needs to deploy its AI capabilities in various applications for better monetisation opportunities, rather than just going through prolonged testing,” Zhang said.

Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings is sharpening its focus on artificial intelligence product experience and user feedback, according to consultancy iiMedia. Photo: AFP

In a major move by Tencent last week, Weixin – the company’s ubiquitous super app, with more than 1.3 billion active users – started to integrate DeepSeek’s reasoning model R1 into the app’s search bar in a beta test available to some users.

“The decision to integrate a third-party artificial intelligence model into its flagship product, despite heavy investment in its own Hunyuan model, signals a more open and user-centric approach to AI,” Morningstar analyst Ivan Su said in a research note this week. “Tencent seems to be prioritising functionality and user experience over exclusivity.”

Some of the apps moved by Tencent to its CSIG unit – including Yuanbao, QQ Browser and Ima – have recently integrated DeepSeek’s R1 model to work alongside the company’s Hunyuan model.

Banking professional Yuri Gu, who lives in southern Guangdong province, said she tried the DeepSeek function on Weixin a few times this week, using the AI model to write up some work reports or simply asking some quirky questions for fun.

“It doesn’t always come up with the most satisfying answers, but it’s still better than DeepSeek’s own app that failed to connect all the time,” Gu said.

DeepSeek’s namesake chatbot has experienced some service outages since last month, owing to alleged cyberattacks and amid an influx of new users.

Another Guangdong resident, Hugo Lin, also decided to abandon the DeepSeek app owing to the unstable service. Lin switched to Weixin and Yuanbao after these Tencent apps gave him access to the popular DeepSeek product.

“It’s convenient to ask simple questions to DeepSeek on Weixin, but I’m using Yuanbao more often now because sometimes I have follow-up questions or need it to help me analyse some documents,” Lin said.

Tencent has continued its efforts to integrate DeepSeek into other products. On Friday, Tencent announced that its work collaboration app, WeCom, is also connected to DeepSeek, which can help enterprise users in customer service.

Meanwhile, Tencent is pushing for wider adoption of its proprietary AI models. The company’s reasoning model, Hunyuan T1, is touted to rival DeepSeek-R1 in terms of functionality. Hunyuan T1 is also available for free via its Yuanbao app.