Tencent Opens WeChat to AI Agents to Retain Users

Tencent Holdings is opening WeChat to smartphone artificial-intelligence agents, as the Chinese tech giant fights to keep the app’s 1.4 billion users locked into its ecosystem in the AI era.

The new feature would allow a phone’s built-in voice assistant to send messages or start voice and video calls inside WeChat, according to a report on Thursday by Chinese financial news outlet Yicai.

WeChat had been working with the country’s biggest phone makers – including Huawei Technologies, Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo – to introduce the feature, the report said. Honor already rolled out the function on some of its devices, letting users control WeChat using Yoyo, the smartphone maker’s AI-powered voice assistant.

The move marks a major shift in direction for Tencent.

Globally, third-party platforms like WhatsApp have long allowed deep integration with assistants like Apple’s Siri. While Siri has been able to send WeChat messages, Tencent has historically restricted external assistants from deeply navigating its app, preferring to keep users inside its own walled garden.

Tencent was also building its own AI agent for WeChat, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources. That assistant would let users navigate millions of mini-programs – the small apps inside WeChat used for everything from ordering food to booking flights – using simple voice commands. It could start public testing as soon as this month, the report said.