November 12, 05:19Pandaily

Tencent releases AI-powered autonomous search product Yuanbao Search

Tencent announced on November 11 the launch of a new autonomous artificial intelligence-based search product called Yuanbao Search. Users can access it by entering so.qq.com in any browser address bar, and users of the latest version of QQ Browser can select it as their search engine in the settings.

"Yuanbao Search" is a direct translation of the Chinese name, and no official English name for the product from Tencent has been found yet. According to Tencent's statements, this service completely rebuilds the entire search process using the capabilities of the large model underlying the Yuanbao assistant. It covers an index of hundreds of billions of pages, including the open web, content from the Tencent ecosystem such as WeChat Official Accounts, WeChat Channels, and Tencent News, as well as scientific literature.

Functionality and Result Priorities

Tencent claims that search results prioritize authoritative institutions and official sources; 157 such sources are integrated into the system and displayed with citations. Advertising is clearly separated from answers, and a "hide ads" option allows the ad block to be completely hidden. When dealing with academic content, the product can summarize the findings of a scientific paper in simple language while retaining the original evidence, and it also offers instant translation of English titles and abstracts.

Users have the option to search for information by typing text, voice input, or uploading a photo, and they can ask additional questions in AI mode. Furthermore, Tencent reports that the product uses a recursive self-improvement mechanism to identify issues based on real usage and feedback, allowing it to improve over time. However, the company has not provided detailed information about the mechanism of this improvement or the measures being taken for protection.

Tencent has not disclosed which specific base models power the answers, whether advertising might appear within AI-generated responses, or whether a separate mobile application or service availability outside of China is planned. The number of users has also not been disclosed. Statements regarding source prioritization and ad separation come from Tencent itself and its product page and have not undergone independent verification.

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technode.comNovember 4, 11:02

Tencent is preparing to launch an AI-powered search engine for consumers

According to a report from Huxiu on November 3rd, Tencent is developing an artificial intelligence-based search engine intended for end-users. This product will integrate AI-generated answers directly with web search results.

According to the report, the planned service will feature a minimalist interface and prioritize authoritative sources of information.

A Tencent insider informed Huxiu that the basic functionality of this search engine is similar to what is used in the Yuanbao application, as well as through the Yuanbao Search API from Tencent Cloud. Tencent Cloud introduced this service to corporate clients two weeks earlier.

The team responsible for search was formed together with Yuanbao in mid-2024. It utilizes technologies borrowed from QQ Browser and Sogou, allowing Tencent to create a unified search infrastructure for implementation across various consumer products and developer services.

technode.comNovember 2, 07:32

Tencent's WeChat Pay introduces AI robot in 7-Eleven store

Tencent's WeChat Pay has launched an artificial intelligence-based robotic system in one of the 7-Eleven stores located on the company's headquarters premises in Shenzhen.

This robot first appeared in the store to celebrate the opening of the two-thousandth 7-Eleven branch in Guangdong province on October 29. The robot utilizes Tencent's Hunyuan artificial intelligence models.

Thanks to this technology, the robot can greet customers, suggest various products and promotional bundles, and assist with placing orders through dialogue. Customers then complete the payment themselves by scanning a special code.

The system is also equipped with Tencent's audio technologies, which allow it to recognize speech even in noisy retail environments. WeChat Pay stated that the goal of introducing the robot is to take over some routine customer interactions, freeing up store employees for more productive tasks such as restocking shelves, preparing food, and assisting visitors.

pandaily.comOctober 30, 10:31

Tencent opens internal data analysis tool Beacon AI for public use

Tencent has made its artificial intelligence-based data analysis platform, Tencent Beacon, available to external companies and private users. Users can register on the website beacon.qq.com. Previously, Beacon was used exclusively by internal Tencent teams for self-service data analysis and visualization for about ten years.

The platform has now been completely redesigned into a comprehensive set of AI-powered data analysis tools. This allows business employees to ask questions in plain language, create dashboards, track the reasons for metric changes, configure monitoring, and collaborate without needing to write SQL code.

Tencent reports that the updated Beacon AI is used by over one hundred internal teams, including QQ Studios, Tencent Video, Tencent News, WeChat Pay, Yuanbao, and TiMi game studios. The company provided examples where an end-to-end operational dashboard, which traditionally required four to six working days in standard Business Intelligence (BI) tools, was created in less than two hours. Furthermore, a monitoring panel was completed in just eight minutes after the user opened the chat.

Beacon AI integrates with three categories and ten types of data sources. These include MySQL, StarRocks, PostgreSQL, and ClickHouse databases, as well as local Excel and CSV files, and online documents from Tencent Docs, WeCom smart sheets, and Feishu. Users can tag fields as dimensions, metrics, or temporal dimensions so that the AI interprets them correctly.

When a user mentions a dataset in the chat and describes the desired outcome, the AI begins delivering results as it understands the request, matching fields, selecting charts, and displaying the dashboard. Many chart types are supported. Dashboards can be edited by pointing to an element and describing the required change, correcting the AI-generated SQL, or directly modifying the HTML dashboard, while maintaining version history and rollback capability.

For attribution purposes, users can click on an unusual chart and ask for the reason behind a numerical value change. The alerting system can trigger when thresholds are reached, data is missing, or queries fail, with notifications sent via WeCom or email. The platform comes with twelve data analysis skills and three visualization skills, supports more functions through a skill marketplace and team-created skill sets, and connects to internal knowledge bases and other systems via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

A feature called Self-Harness transforms feedback, corrections, and successful methods from past tasks into reusable experience. Regarding data security, Tencent asserts that the model only sees metadata, such as field names and data types, during reasoning. Actual values are filled via placeholders and are not read by the model, and every step is recorded in an audit log. Team spaces offer three levels of permissions, and administrators can restrict the use of AI models for team members. The enterprise version supports private deployment.