The expectations for Tencent AI from the outside world are too high.

On June 5, at the 2026 Tencent Cloud AI Industry Application Conference, Dowson Tong, Senior Executive Vice President of Tencent Group, and Yao Shunyu, Tencent's Chief AI Scientist, held a dialogue titled 'The Second Half of Tencent AI.'

The focus of the entire event fell on Yao Shunyu: the live audience was packed; off-site discussions were also exploding with heat (retranslated as 'heat' or 'popularity').

Yao Shunyu Answers Everything for Tencent AI

This marked his first appearance at a public offline event since joining Tencent last December. Previously, he had only appeared via video link at a roundtable forum.

AI Blue Media Hub commented that Yao Shunyu is Tencent AI's most star-studded product. This genius teenager (retranslated as 'youngster') was pushed to the forefront, possibly by Tencent's design. For example, in the dialogue's agenda setting, the roles of Dowson Tong and Yao Shunyu were rarely reversed.

The former, as a member of Tencent's highest management 'General Office,' directly oversees the Cloud and Smart Industries Group, which is closely linked to AI, and has deep qualifications and high authority. Instead, he became the host, frequently asking questions. The latter became the unified outlet for Tencent AI's strategic information, delivering speeches from his own and technical perspectives.

At this moment, Yao Shunyu, like Luo Fuli from Xiaomi, became the corporate face. When Tencent AI's industry presence is weak, the public's gaze focuses on individual stars, also flowing to their own AI products.

Yao Shunyu naturally became the spokesperson for Tencent AI. In his Q&A with Dowson Tong, he shared Tencent AI's thoughts on the second half:

Racing for general-purpose large models is just the first half of AI. When AI methodologies mature, the focus of competition shifts from parameter competition and scale accumulation to implementation capabilities, scenario adaptation, and industrial intelligence of ecological integration.

The second half of AI is about finding good problems and solving them.

Thus, 'good problems' become extremely scarce. Tencent possesses rich product scenarios and high-quality contextual data (context), which will become key barriers in the Agent era.

Because models are increasingly adept at transforming very complex inputs into outputs, many times your competitive barrier comes from whether you have that most original (retranslated as 'original') input. Do you know what this person is doing? Do you know various information about this enterprise?

The two also answered the outside world's burning question about 'Tencent AI being slow' in a highly dramatic manner.

Dowson Tong asked: 'Everyone says Tencent is slow and hasn't seized some opportunities in AI in a timely manner. Do you think we're really slow? What exactly is the second half?'

Yao Shunyu replied with an attitude of 'almost Gen Z setting things right in the workplace': 'I feel like I should be asking you that question.'

This confrontational interaction was highly contagious, instantly going viral across platforms.

Of course, Yao Shunyu still played his role well, sharing his judgment on the industry: AI will be a long game; the second half has just begun, so it's not late. Moreover, ChatGPT and Claude won't be the only super apps. The future of AI will become more diverse, with Coding Agents and productivity becoming more important.

Dowson Tong added from the perspective of a product veteran: In the past (PC Internet, mobile Internet era), making products was like preparing dishes—the menu was written, and users ordered. Now, AI products face open-ended inputs; you root (retranslated as 'simply') don't know what users will ask. This change forces organizations to become small-team-based and experiment-driven. Engineers are no longer just coders but 'product leaders driving multiple Coding Agents.'

Following this logic, he also made up for Tencent AI from a management perspective: In a multi-format organization, coexistence of speed and slowness is normal. In a long race, rich scenarios and data context are Tencent's core barriers.

However, Tencent's responses to 'being slow' and 'falling behind' at various levels also reflect its anxiety about AI.

On May 13, Pony Ma also used a viral metaphor at a shareholders' meeting when asked if Tencent AI had 'fallen behind.' He said, 'A year ago, we thought we had boarded the ship. Later, we found the ship was leaking. Now, we feel like we're standing on it but can't sit down comfortably. We still hope the ship can speed up.'

Tencent AI's Low-Spec 'Longzhong Dialogue'

The dialogue between the two lasted about 45 minutes and contained a lot of information. But after watching it, my biggest impression was still: This dialogue setup, with the head of Tencent Cloud business and Tencent AI's new C-position holder, openly discussing Tencent AI's moves, AI trend judgments, and even reflecting on Tencent AI's strategies, felt a bit awkward.

This sense of alienation is eerily similar to the fragmentation of Tencent's AI business. Behind closed doors, they're one family, but the information conveyed likely has a huge temperature difference with Tencent's internal AI implementation pace.

However, through the dialogue, Yao Shunyu still presented a low-spec 'Longzhong Dialogue' for Tencent AI.

Why low-spec? There's only one reason: The person sitting on stage wasn't Pony Ma or Allen Zhang.

A friend of mine joked that both Tang and Yao are in the President's Office, each managing a area. They've reached consensus on AI's general direction, but the two most important people haven't gotten involved, so it's a wasted conversation.

Of course, it's not entirely a wasted conversation. This alignment at the execution level will also influence strategic-level decisions to some extent. Questions like 'Is Tencent AI slow?' and 'How will Tencent AI fight next?' that the outside world is concerned about are very suitable for them to answer.

The two aligned their tactical views, and both strategies and levers were established. However, this only conveys information about 'how Tencent AI will fight in the second half'; the answer to 'where to fight' is beyond their reach.

Because the answer lies with Allen Zhang. This Big Boss, who didn't appear at the conference, is Tencent AI's trump card in the second half. He holds China's only true 'super app'—WeChat.

For example, within the past week, two moves by WeChat caused industry uproar, sufficiently proving its weight.

On June 2, news emerged that Tencent is testing a built-in WeChat AI Agent prototype. Users can simply swipe right on the WeChat main interface to bring up the dialogue window for this AI agent, which can automatically invoke millions of mini-programs within the WeChat ecosystem, covering services like ride-hailing, food delivery, and ticket booking.

This rumor hasn't been officially confirmed. However, influenced by it, Tencent's stock price saw its largest increase since the end of 2022, closing up 10.5% with trading volume hitting a new high in over a year.

The market expects that WeChat AI can help Tencent AI turn the tide against the wind.

Immediately after, on June 4, WeChat customer service confirmed that WeChat is preparing to launch A2A (Agent-to-Agent) assistant capabilities. Through AI voice assistants within the phone system, it can initiate WeChat audio/video calls or send messages to specified friends.

Unlike WeChat's previous move to block Doubao AI phones, this time it's rarely cooperating with leading phone manufacturers like Huawei, Honor, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo, opening a crack for third parties.

Additionally, at Meituan's earnings call, Wang Xing announced that Meituan's AI assistant 'Xiaomei' will integrate with Tencent Yuanbao, allowing services like Meituan food delivery ordering and delivery to be completed within Yuanbao.

Tencent AI is boldly taking an offensive stance with WeChat AI as its strongest weapon. In a sense, Tencent AI is roughly equal to WeChat AI. The other part consists of AI-native-like products such as Yuanbao and WorkBuddy. Together, they form Tencent AI's landscape.

Tencent has made countless AI products and attempts over the past year, from Yuanbao to WorkBuddy, to various 'lobster' matrices. Their popularity quickly gets drowned out by competitors or themselves. However, only WeChat AI can make waves in the market and intimidate competitors.

WeChat has 1.4 billion users, with Public Accounts, Mini Programs, Moments, Video Channels, and Search. This is almost an AI-native ecosystem tailored for Agents, with no product more frequent, deeper in scenarios, or with thicker data accumulation.

This is also why Yao Shunyu believes, 'Tencent has many good problems, many products.' WeChat might be the best one. The context and co-design he mentioned can all be solved within WeChat Agents.

The most core infrastructure of the Agent era lies in WeChat. Without deep integration with WeChat, Tencent AI can only remain as B-side tools and scattered C-side applications, never forming a closed loop. Only when AI becomes a native capability of WeChat and truly reconstructs user interaction logic does Tencent AI earn its ticket to the second half.

So, I call this dialogue a low-spec 'Longzhong Dialogue.'

But it's not the final plan for Tencent AI's future route. It has tactical consensus, implementation levers, responses to 'slowness,' and directions for organizational transformation. However, it lacks the most crucial link: the highest decision-making level's final judgment on C-side entry points.

Pony Ma once admitted that designing WeChat AI is complex, and everyone should be patient, as 'slow work yields fine results.' This event didn't mention WeChat at all, but everyone knows the protagonist is WeChat.

This is the most intriguing strategic blank space (retranslated as 'blank space') behind today's dialogue. However, it's clearly unsuitable for the two to publicly declare, 'The second half of Tencent AI depends on WeChat,' on their home turf.

References:

Tencent Technology, 'Dowson Tong and Yao Shunyu Dialogue: The Second Half of Tencent AI'

AI Blue Media Hub, 'Yao Shunyu is Tencent AI's Most Star-Studded Product'

Intelligence Emergence, 'WeChat AI Opens a Narrow Door for Phone Manufacturers'