Tencent WorkBuddy hits 20 million visits in AI office race

Tencent's WorkBuddy became China's most-used AI workplace assistant with 20.97 million monthly visits in June, giving the internet giant a rare lead over rivals ByteDance and Alibaba.

"If they start to disclose encouraging metrics on WorkBuddy, I think that will help change people's perception about Tencent," Jiong Shao, an analyst at Barclays Capital in New York, said. Shao said Tencent became Barclays' top pick for the first time in five years because "from a longer-term perspective, they have a bigger chance to win."

WorkBuddy launched in March, riding the user surge triggered by OpenClaw. Its June traffic of 20.97 million visits topped ByteDance's Trae and Alibaba's QoderWork combined, according to data provider Analysys cited by 36Kr. The product's integration with WeChat, Tencent's messaging app with more than 1.3 billion users, gives it a distribution advantage rivals cannot easily match, said Ivan Su, senior equity analyst at Morningstar.

The stakes are high for Tencent, whose shares have fallen more than 20 percent this year even after a 17 percent rebound from a June low, underperforming the Hang Seng Tech Index's 11 percent decline. Investors will watch Wednesday's second-quarter earnings for WorkBuddy user data and capital expenditure plans, with revenue growth expected near 10 percent and profit growth of about 5 percent.

China's AI office market shifts to enterprise

The AI office market has become the industry's main commercial battleground as large model providers struggle to monetize consumer chatbots. China's enterprise-level AI agent market reached about 21.2 billion yuan in 2025 and is expected to grow to 44.9 billion yuan in 2026, with projections exceeding 332 billion yuan by 2029, according to Kezhi Consulting. Monthly visits to 17 mainstream desktop AI-native office agents surpassed 60 million in June, three times the March figure, per Analysys.

Tencent's rivals are reorganizing to compete. ByteDance merged its Feishu product team into Doubao and folded sales and marketing into Volcano Engine, while Alibaba unified its office AI products under the Qianwen brand and Baidu consolidated its office agent business. WorkBuddy's early lead reflects Tencent's decision to prioritize the product, which Shao called the company's most promising AI bet.

Morningstar's Su said WorkBuddy's integration into WeChat makes it stickier and harder to replace than rival products. "If we were to find one thing within Tencent's AI strategy that's worth highlighting, I think WorkBuddy is the go-to for investors," Su said.

The question is whether user growth translates into revenue. Tencent's capital expenditure is expected to be similar to Alibaba's this year, and accelerating AI investment could pressure profit quality if monetization lags. Analysts project second-quarter revenue growth of nearly 10 percent and a profit increase of 5 percent.

Tencent, China's largest company with a market value of $557 billion, spans social networks, gaming, e-commerce and payments. Shao argued the company's breadth gives it a unique position. "Tencent may be the only company in the whole world that can have a very good general purpose AI agent," he said.

Tencent shares trade near record-low valuations despite the recent rebound, and WorkBuddy's disclosed metrics in Wednesday's earnings could be the trigger that narrows the gap with pure-play AI names. If the company reports strong user growth alongside disciplined capital spending, the stock's 20 percent year-to-date decline may mark the bottom of a re-rating cycle. Without monetization data, however, the market has little to anchor its AI narrative beyond user counts.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.