Tencent Holdings to unveil its new Chatbot, Steps into Race post Government Approval

According to a social media post published on September 5, China's internet giant Tencent Holdings said it will unveil an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot on September 6. The post included a demonstration conversation a user had with the AI chatbot, which assisted the user in creating promotional materials.

It comes after China began approving AI chatbots for public use last month. Other major Chinese technology companies, such as Baidu Inc and SenseTime Group, released AI chatbots last week.

Tencent has been working on its own AI model called "Hunyuan" for months, and the company announced last month that it was expanding the model's internal testing. Sources reported in February that the company formed a team to develop a ChatGPT-like chatbot named "HunyuanAide" at the time.

Tencent's shares were down around 1 per cent on Wednesday, lagging a 0.5 per cent drop in the broader market.

A chatbot is a software application or web interface that attempts to simulate human conversation via text or voice interactions.