Tencent tests Yuanbao AI assistant within WeChat, expanding its role beyond chat

Tencent appears to be embedding its Yuanbao feature into the WeChat ecosystem. Currently branded as the “Red Envelope Assistant,” Yuanbao now offers a range of functions, including the ability to pin to top, share, and interact with content. Tests have shown that Yuanbao can not only respond to images and files, but also summarize articles from official accounts and web links. If Tencent fully rolls out this feature, Yuanbao could effectively integrate within the WeChat ecosystem, leveraging its user base of over 1 billion daily active users.
Following international attention and a surge in users, DeepSeek has frequently displayed the message “the server is busy, please try again later” due to high server load. As a result, users have turned to other AI platforms that integrate the DeepSeek model and offer higher computing power, such as Tencent’s Yuanbao and Baidu’s ERNIE Bot. Notably, after incorporating DeepSeek, Yuanbao topped Apple’s China App Store, surpassing DeepSeek in rankings. [Caixin, in Chinese]