Yuanbao deeply integrates with WeChat

Author | Huang Yu

Editor | Wang Xiaojuan

As the first AI-native app under Tencent and a pioneer in seizing the next generation of super traffic entry points, Yuanbao aims to become a chat companion for over 1.3 billion users on WeChat.

Wall Street Insights discovered that on April 16, WeChat quietly launched the AI assistant Yuanbao. Users can directly add it as a WeChat friend by searching for "Yuanbao," and then interact with it directly through the chat interface.

This move not only further enriches WeChat's AI capabilities, allowing Yuanbao to deeply integrate into WeChat, but also serves as another wave of traffic for Yuanbao.

According to the introduction on the "Yuanbao" WeChat account, it is the AI assistant of Tencent's Yuanbao app, equipped with the Hunyuan and DeepSeek dual-mode engine, seamlessly connecting to the WeChat ecosystem.

However, from a functional perspective, this "chat companion" is merely a simplified version of the Yuanbao app, currently supporting one-click analysis of public account articles, images, and document services. At the same time, when answering user questions, it provides brief comments in colloquial language, and for complex issues, it offers more detailed responses through links, with a download link for the Yuanbao app at the end.

Clearly, Yuanbao currently exists in the WeChat ecosystem as an AI chat assistant and has yet to demonstrate capabilities in AI Agent functions, such as the ability to invoke various services and features within the WeChat ecosystem, including mini-programs, public accounts, and WeChat stores.

As the core entry point of Tencent's ecosystem, WeChat has always been cautious in optimizing its functions. In fact, last month, WeChat tested the "Yuanbao" account, but at that time, it was named "Yuanbao Red Packet Cover Assistant." It could be used to create red packet covers and also supported interpreting public account articles and analyzing documents and images, but the responses were all shared in the form of links.

Yuanbao's formal entry into the WeChat chat list marks a significant change in WeChat's functional adjustments.

After the explosive popularity of DeepSeek during this year's Spring Festival, AI applications have reached a critical juncture, and promoting Yuanbao has become a strategic initiative at the Tencent group level while actively embracing DeepSeek.

Transitioning from last year's low-key approach, Yuanbao has begun to invest heavily in traffic acquisition this year. Starting in late February, Yuanbao's advertisements have almost covered all platforms within the Tencent ecosystem, as well as external channels such as Bilibili, Zhihu, and Xiaohongshu. By March, Yuanbao even began grassroots "wall" promotions.

According to DataEye data, starting from February 18, Tencent Yuanbao's advertising volume surged, climbing from around 2,000 daily materials to over 17,000 by the end of the month, rising from the bottom position among Doubao, Kimi, and others to the top. In contrast, Kimi's advertising efforts significantly declined, dropping from around 20,000 daily materials to nearly stagnation.

In addition to substantial advertising investments, Yuanbao is also rapidly iterating its product features to capture the market, including launching the deep thinking model "Hunyuan T1," the quick thinking large model Hunyuan Turbo S, a desktop version, and supporting the upload and export of Tencent documents According to Wall Street News, Yuanbao updated 30 versions in just 35 days.

With such a significant investment, the results were immediate. On March 3, the Tencent Yuanbao APP surpassed DeepSeek to rise to first place in the free App download rankings in the Chinese Apple App Store, while Doubao ranked fourth. It is worth noting that on February 13, Yuanbao was outside the top 100 on this list.

At Tencent's earnings meeting on March 19, Tencent President Liu Chiping revealed that Tencent indeed provided substantial traffic support for Yuanbao as a launch initiative, and they have been closely monitoring retention rates during this process. Currently, the retention rate is quite good; from February to March, Yuanbao's daily active users (DAU) increased by 20 times, making it the third-ranked AI-native mobile application in China by DAU.

QuestMobile's "2025 Q1 AI Application Market Competition Analysis" also shows that as of March 2025, the AI-native APP industry leader DeepSeek has 194 million monthly active users, followed closely by Doubao and Yuanbao, with 116 million and 41.64 million monthly active users, respectively.

In just three months, the landscape of AI-native APPs has undergone a significant reshuffle, with the top three applications changing from Doubao, Kimi Smart Assistant, and Wen Xiaoyan at the end of 2024 to DeepSeek, Doubao, and Yuanbao.

However, compared to DeepSeek and Doubao, Yuanbao's monthly active user data still shows a considerable gap.

Yuanbao's traffic support is ongoing, but it has clearly decreased significantly compared to its recent peak.

Additionally, Wall Street News noted that on April 17, Yuanbao APP's ranking in the Chinese Apple App Store free App download chart fell back to tenth place, while Doubao and DeepSeek ranked first and third, respectively.

It is evident that to become an AI super application, Yuanbao, despite being backed by Tencent, still faces significant challenges.

Liu Chiping also pointed out that Yuanbao will not solely rely on traffic support to acquire users in the future. Instead, various functions will be added to Yuanbao to transform it into a more intelligent AI assistant, and it will be organically linked with Tencent's existing products.

Tencent is making a significant commitment to AI.

At last month's earnings meeting, Tencent announced that it would further increase capital expenditure in 2025, building on last year's record high capital expenditure of 76.7 billion yuan. In terms of research and development, it will continue to invest in self-developed models and accelerate AI application development across various business groups. At the same time, Tencent will also invest in marketing to enhance user awareness and adoption rates of new AI products, such as Yuanbao.

To lead in this AI arms race, Tencent will undoubtedly need to attract more AI talent. On April 17, Tencent announced the launch of its largest employment plan in history, aiming to add 28,000 internship positions over three years and increase conversion rates for hiring. In 2025 alone, it will welcome 10,000 campus recruitment interns, with 60% of positions open to technical talent.

Tencent stated that against the backdrop of accelerating the implementation of large models, it has intensified recruitment efforts for technical positions in artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, game engines, digital content, and other fields, with unprecedented expansion in technical recruitment Seizing the opportunity of the AI application explosion, Tencent has already gone all out