On August 12, during Tencent’s Q2 2026 earnings call, President Lau Chi-ping addressed early feedback from the gray-scale testing of WeChat’s AI assistant, “Xiaowei.” He explained that AI can make WeChat far smarter, helping users handle transactions, discover content, and manage daily routines with ease.
Drawing a historical comparison, Lau noted that in the PC era, QQ primarily served as a communication and social tool. Then came the mobile internet age, where WeChat multiplied that value by more than tenfold. Now, as we step into the AI era, he believes WeChat will gradually transform into an AI-first ecosystem. Users simply give a command, and the system takes care of the rest automatically.
He emphasized that if Tencent can deliver this experience while keeping costs in check, meeting user privacy expectations, and maintaining cost efficiency, WeChat will be armed with truly powerful capabilities. “The WeChat ecosystem will keep expanding, and based on our existing monetization mechanisms, that can translate into enormous value. This is the future we see unfolding. And with each prototype we roll out, our confidence only grows.”
Lau also highlighted a fundamental shift in how users interact within the WeChat ecosystem. In the past, it was mostly about users engaging with content and mini programs. Looking ahead, users will be able to send complex, multi-step instructions directly to AI agents, which will handle the execution on their behalf. Further down the road, every mini program, every merchant, and every individual user could have their own dedicated agent. These agents will communicate with each other and even complete transactions autonomously. Tencent is steadily building the underlying architecture to make this vision a reality, step by step.