Tencent on Thursday launched an AI assistant app called Yuanbao, signaling the Chinese tech giant’s belated entry into the highly competitive artificial intelligence assistant field with an independent entry based on the company’s Hunyuan foundation model. Yuanbao integrates artificial intelligence-based search, summaries, and writing competencies, and can be used to analyze documents, and basically engage with people based on prompts. Why it matters: The opening of the independent app shows that Tencent has finally chosen to face competition head-on, several months after AI offerings from its rivals. Baidu’s ERNIE Bot has already amassed 200 million users, while ByteDance’s Doubao currently boasts over 26 million monthly active users. Based on the published guidelines of the Yuanbao app, the consumer-oriented assistant currently offers multiple AI agents, similar to GPTs, which can be selected for various functions, including English-speaking practice, daily life translation, and avatar generation.