Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Tencent Restructures Its Portfolio to Compete

Artificial Intelligence Restructuring at Tencent

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, Sogou Pinyin, and 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 confirmed the company’s reshuffle of its AI product portfolio.

This 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. 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.

User-Centric AI Experience

“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.

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 commented.

Challenges and User Adoption

Some of the apps moved by Tencent to its CSIG unit – including Yuanbao, QQ Browser, and Ima – have recently integrated DeepSeek’s R1 model. Meanwhile, banking professional Yuri Gu shared her experience using the DeepSeek function on Weixin:

• “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.
• Another Guangdong resident, Hugo Lin, decided to abandon the DeepSeek app due to the unstable service.

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.