Tencent has begun testing Xiaowei, an AI assistant inside WeChat, with a small number of users in China. The text- and voice-based tool lets users complete tasks through WeChat’s mini-program ecosystem.

Tencent’s customer service unit said Xiaowei mainly runs on Weixin’s WeLM large language model and sometimes uses DeepSeek. WeChat did not specify which tasks Xiaowei can handle.

Its mini-program ecosystem includes services such as food delivery and ride-hailing.

The commercial scope could be large. WeChat’s combined monthly active users reached 1.382 billion, and mini-program gross merchandise value surpassed 2 trillion yuan (US$295 billion) in the third quarter of 2024.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

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