San Francisco Frontiers - China tech giant Tencent bets on AI agents

Agents -- programmes that execute real-life tasks such as sending emails or booking flights -- are being touted as AI's next frontier after chatbots such as ChatGPT.

Their incorporation into WeChat may alter how people in the world's second-largest economy use the so-called "super-app" that already boasts social messaging, digital payments and a long list of other features.

Tencent, also the world's largest video game publisher, reported a 16 percent jump in full-year net profit on Wednesday, with gaming still the main business driver even as it extends its AI push.

The company has sought in recent years to integrate AI into WeChat, known as Weixin in China.

"We hope to create AI agents in Weixin, which could leverage Weixin's close connection with users," company president Martin Lau told reporters.

"It will be a highly diverse ecosystem, encompassing mini-programs, content, commerce, social networking and payments," Lau added, without giving details such as when the service would become available.

On Wednesday, Tencent said net profit for 2025 came to 224.8 billion yuan ($32.6 billion), beating estimates of 221.9 billion yuan in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

The company, which owns the developer of popular eSports including "League of Legends", has sizeable operations in other sectors from cloud computing to entertainment.

Despite being China's most valuable tech company by market capitalisation, so far Tencent has been seen as a cautious AI player, although founder Pony Ma has vowed to increase investment in the sector.

"Our highly resilient and cash generative core businesses provides us with the resources to fund our increasing investments in AI," Ma said in a statement Wednesday.

- Agent fever -

Like its rivals Alibaba, Baidu and ByteDance, Tencent has recently branched out into the world of AI agents with its WorkBuddy app.

The Shenzhen-based company has also been among the Chinese tech giants racing to take advantage of a surge in interest in the country in OpenClaw -- an AI agent platform created by an Austrian programmer that has fascinated the tech world.

Tencent and others are offering simplified installation and affordable coding plans to help users host OpenClaw agents on cloud servers.

Earlier this month the company's cloud computing arm organised an OpenClaw setup event at its headquarters, which drew more than 1,000 attendees, with similar events planned across China.

The increasing capabilities of Tencent's main large-language AI model, and AI agent tools such as WorkBuddy and new offering QClaw, "are encouraging early signs that these investments will unlock new opportunities", the company said.

The Financial Times reported this month that the White House was debating whether Tencent's investment in US and Finnish gaming groups pose a national security risk.

Discussions over its stakes in "Fortnite" creator Epic Games, Riot Games and Supercell revolve around the implications for US user data privacy, the British newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

"We have been engaged in constructive discussions with the relevant US regulators for quite some time now," said Tencent president Lau.

"Things are moving in a positive direction" with the overall risk "manageable", he said.

"While there are due processes to be followed in the US, other regions are actually very keen for us to invest in gaming companies."

L.Nguyen--SFF