GuShiio.com Wen| Zinc Scale, Author| Chen Dengxin, Editor| Li Jinlin
Nowadays, the pace of implementation of generative AI is getting faster and faster. From efficient office work to accelerated learning, from literature and art entertainment to investment and financial management, it is permeating every corner of daily life.
In this context, Internet giants are lining up around AI applications.
Baidu favors agents and regards them as the most mainstream form of AI applications; Tencent, ByteDance and others use AI assistants as their fulcrum to race around the ground, and Alibaba is recruiting in the field of AI To C.……
Among them, Tencent Yuanbao has become very popular recently.
First, it connected to the full blood version of DeepSeek-R1, then launched the Deep Thinking Model Mixed T1, and then launched the computer version, which became the focus of heated discussions on the Internet for a time.
Correspondingly, the bean bag App is being connected by Douyin test, trying to pry a larger user disk.
What are giants rolling AI applications? Is Tencent Yuanbao becoming the dark horse of AI applications by chance or destiny? AI application track, will the future be a dual male side by side?
Grab the super traffic entrance
Generative AI allows artificial intelligence to move from behind the scenes to the front desk, making it within reach of everyone.
What followed was the Hundred Models Battle. With the mentality that they did not have to win, but they had to have it, players had to review parameters, computing power, and rankings.……
Fu Sheng, chairman and CEO of Cheetah Mobile, said: If parameters are superimposed regardless of cost and the so-called large model capabilities, this road will definitely encounter difficulties. OpenAI released the application of the GPT-4o model, which shows that the large model has great potential at the application level. The capabilities of the large model will continue to iterate, but in the end, the one that can make good use of the large model is still the application. rdquo;
In a word,The end of the big model is AI applications.
At present, AI has not yet emerged as a killer application. Whoever can have it first is equivalent to getting a ticket to the second half. Not only can he have greater say in the industry, but he can also determine the future AI ecosystem.
As a result, whether it is Internet giants such as Baidu, Tencent, ByteDance, and Alibaba, or start-ups such as Dark Side of the Moon, Mita Technology, and Zipu AI, they all unanimously add AI applications.
An Internet observer told Zinc Scale: New species often fail to achieve high quality at the beginning. Perseverance groping can only understand the needs and finally find killer applications. There is often a time lag between this. It was five years after the Internet entered China that QQ appeared, and WeChat appeared four years after the iPhone was released. rdquo;
The above-mentioned Internet observers further stated that every era has its own super entrance, and the AI era is no exception. The super traffic entrance in the AI era is naturally a battleground for military strategists.
Source: AI product list
To put it plainly,It’s a matter of time before killer apps appear, and no one wants to miss them.
Wu Chao, director of the China Securities Research Institute, said: Looking at the mobile Internet round, I think 2023 may be more like the basic hardware in 2012, but I don’t know where the application is. I think 2024 is more like 2013, where some applications have begun to bloom, and the hot spots of emotional investment have emerged, but we may not be able to distinguish which company will eventually emerge.” rdquo;
This can be seen from the leadership of each country.
Kimi smart assistant on the dark side of the moon, with its ability to support 2 million words of ultra-long lossless contexts, became the first AI application to be released, and also kicked off the domestic long text competition.
After that, Doubao came from behind.
Public data shows that in January 2025, the number of monthly active users of Doubao APP reached 78.61 million, ranking first among domestic AI applications and second in the global market, second only to ChatGPT.
As a result, the capital market has enthusiastically promoted the concept of bean buns and earned the attention of 220 million investors. This means that AI applications have moved from a niche to the public and into the homes of ordinary people.
Now, it’s Tencent Yuanbao’s turn.
After DeepSeek’s blockbuster, Tencent Yuanbao was the first AI assistant among the top players to extend an olive branch. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he also stepped out of the circle, and the volume continued to rise.
Unexpectedly, Tencent Yuanbao eventually overtook DeepSeek and became the first brother in the free App download rankings of Apple’s App Store in China.
Tencent Yuanbao’s growth momentum is visible to the naked eye
It is not difficult to see thatAI applications have become the main battlefield for Internet giants to deploy troops.
According to the latest research report of CITIC Construction Investment, DeepSeek has disclosed its profit-to-cost ratio, with a theoretical cost ratio of 545%, and the model manufacturer’s profit model has been closed-loop. From the perspective of industry demand, there is a lot of room for downward costs and upward capabilities in the model link, which is expected to accelerate the release of downstream application AI demand. rdquo;
Qualifying is far from over
It can be seen from the above that the qualifying competition for AI applications presents a situation of chasing each other. There are three reasons behind this.
First of all, there are many opportunities in the incremental market.
Looking back, AI applications have gone through their infancy and are moving towards a growth stage. They are a vibrant incremental market, not a life-and-death stock market, let alone a disheartened shrinking market.
QuestMobile data shows that as of December 2024, the number of monthly mobile Internet users in China is 1.257 billion, and the average monthly usage time is 171.7 hours; among them, the number of monthly users of AI native apps is 120 million, and the average monthly usage time is 132.8 minutes. There is room for visible growth.
Source: QuestMobile
“The explosion of user demand and the improvement of digital infrastructure are pushing the industry to approach the AI singularity. Traditional apps are also accelerating their transformation. 70% of apps with a scale of more than 100 million are on the road to transformation. rdquo;QuestMobile said.
This means that there is still a lot of imagination for AI applications.
After all, those who enter first overcome obstacles and overcome obstacles will inevitably have a bumpy journey. Although those who enter later are late, they can also learn relevant experience and lessons, increase the probability of avoiding holes and avoid detours. It can be seen that the advantage of latecomer is also an advantage.
As a result, it is not surprising that overtaking occurs frequently in corners on AI application tracks.
Secondly, a good meal is not afraid of being late.
Although AI must move from demonstration to practical use has long been a consensus in the industry, there have been differences for quite a long time on how to implement and empower thousands of industries. Which is more important To B and to C, and which is better to open source and closed source. It is the focus of debate.
In this context, if you don’t make a move, you will have to hit hard once you make a move, and it has become the core demand of the industry.
ByteDance is a typical representative of this. Although its bean bag App is late, it has achieved differentiation through its heritage in AI voice and other fields.
Zhou Hao, head of bean bag strategic research, said: Oral English practice is a popular educational scene. Users reported that the pronunciation, vocabulary, and sentence patterns of Doubao far exceed his own. Through the real-time voice call function of Doubao, you can practice English with Doubao again and again without embarrassment and save the cost of asking for teacher tutoring.& rdquo;
In fact, the same is true for Tencent.
Ma Huateng once said: Internet companies all have a lot of accumulation and are doing it. We are also immersed in research and development, but we are not in a hurry to finish it early and show semi-finished products for display. For the Industrial Revolution, taking out the light bulb a month earlier is not so important over a long period of time. rdquo;
In short, Tencent has been looking for a strength point, and by the way, it has also left an impression of Buddhism on the outside world.
In fact, before DeepSeek became popular, Tencent had figured out the relationship between big models and applications: application iteration is not to serve big models and make big models more effective, but to serve users and solve users ‘practical problems.
Public reports show that in January 2025, Tencent Yuanbao was transferred from Tencent TEG (Technology Engineering Business Group) to CSIG (Cloud and Smart Industry Business Group), and the person in charge changed from Jiang Jie, head of Tencent’s Mixed Model, to Wu Zurong, head of the Tencent Meeting.
In this way, Tencent Yuanbao eliminated resistance to accessing DeepSeek in advance.
Once again, DeepSeek became a variable.
DeepSeek set a new record in history for the fastest number of daily active users exceeding the 30 million mark. This was followed by a busy server. Please try again later.
Tencent Yuanbao, who had no ideological baggage, took the lead in catching this wave of traffic.
DataEye Research Institute said: Tencent’s approach is more like it has its own strategic considerations: it uses external models and its own huge amount of information and users to create killer applications in the AI era, and at the same time helps Tencent’s internal large models drain and iterate. rdquo;
In addition, Tencent Yuanbao has now iterated into a DeepSeek+ Mixed Origin dual model. You can use DeepSeek-R1 full blood version and Tencent Mixed Origin T1 for in-depth thinking, and you can also use DeepSeek-V3 and Tencent Mixed Origin Turbo to quickly solve the problem. The practicality actually exceeds the original version.
Tencent Yuanbao receives ecosystem support
It should be noted that the threshold for AI applications is low, and competition in the future is bound to become more intense.
An industry insider told Zinc Scale: Companies with scarce resources such as traffic, scenarios, and data are more likely to incubate killer applications. In the final analysis, it is still an ecological competition. rdquo;
In fact, Tencent and ByteDance have stepped into the same river.
Tencent products such as WeChat have been connected to Tencent Yuanbao, and Douyin is also testing access to bean bags to open up the separation between AI applications and ecosystems, thereby seeking dual growth in user scale and user stickiness.
The above-mentioned industry insiders further stated thatInternet giants are betting on AI applications in order to find WeChat and Douyin in the AI era, which contain real opportunities for overtaking in corners.
From this perspective, generative AI has entered the second half, and AI applications have ushered in the App Store moment. Whoever can find killer AI applications first will seize the major opportunity in history and become the well-deserved new king of the Internet.
Then, the qualifying race for AI applications is far from over.
