When Pony Ma called Tencent Holdings’ artificial intelligence endeavor “a leaky ship” this summer, the billionaire founder sent ripples through a company that for years dominated the industry with WeChat. The social media and gaming leader was at the time struggling to catch the likes of DeepSeek in the post-ChatGPT age. One of his key lieutenants, Dowson Tong, came up with a surprising answer: Let’s retool to focus on businesses.
The Silicon Valley veteran focused the turnaround effort on something called WorkBuddy, then considered a side project within Tencent’s sprawling internet portfolio. By the fall, the Claude Cowork-style AI assistant, which combined the company’s existing messaging and office tools with AI agents that can take data and crank out reports, served 32 million monthly users — more than its rivals combined. The platform launched Tencent into a lucrative segment of AI, an important first step toward regaining its tech credibility.
Tong is now one of just a handful of key Tencent executives spearheading a high-stakes push to close the gap with TikTok-parent ByteDance and longstanding rival Alibaba Group Holding. At stake is Tencent’s future industry standing against a crop of fast-rising AI-native firms from DeepSeek to Moonshot AI, which’ve propelled the country to the forefront of the global AI race. WorkBuddy’s ascent signals a shift by Tencent to focus on enterprise agents rather than consumer chatbots, at least in the early phases, so it can better monetize an emerging technology, the Hong Kong native said in Shenzhen this week.
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