Text | Zhiji, Author丨Ai AA, Editor丨Cheng Xin
Tencent AI has not been able to knock on the door of "WeChat", and it has not been angry, and now it has finally used the strongest king, Yuanbao through WeChat!
Recently, WeChat Mimi quietly launched the "Ingot Chat Dialog Box", in which you can directly add Ingot as a friend, it is no longer a cold tool, but seamlessly integrated into the user's daily life and work scene.
According to Zhiji, WeChat began to test the "Ingot Red Envelope Cover Assistant" during the Spring Festival, and now it has officially changed its name to "Ingot Treasure".
▲The picture comes from Xiaohongshu
According to public data, WeChat's overall DAU has exceeded the 1.3 billion mark, ranking first in China in the field of instant messaging with 80 million monthly active users, and the average daily usage time of users exceeds three hours.
WeChat's large user base and high frequency of use make it a platform with endless possibilities, which is why WeChat is extra cautious when making AI updates, as each update can have a significant impact on the user experience and the platform ecosystem, as well as the industry.
As a simple example, when the world's leading super app directly connects to the ingots and drains the ingots, how can the streaming war of Kimi and Doubao be fought?
Of course, this is not just a problem of traffic entrance, Zhang Xiaolong once mentioned in the WeChat open class that WeChat is a social network built on "people and people", and all of WeChat's product ideas and business models are built on the basis of private social networking.
As a result, when AI becomes a user's friend, the traditional "person-to-person" social logic is broken, and the AI assistant is no longer just a tool to solve problems, but a part of the user's life. The entire product logic and social ecology of WeChat may be facing reconstruction.
"No one can beat WeChat, except the times."
Now, a new era has come, is WeChat ready to take it?
It is different from other apps or web interfacesTOBased on the ecological advantages of WeChat, ingots are a kind of existence that can be added as friends.
Enter "ingot" in the search box and click "chat" to add ingots to your address book as one of your WeChat friends.
What are the similarities and differences between the friend "Yuanbao" in WeChat and the APP "Tencent Yuanbao"?
The first is the online search function,"Tencent ingots" support online search,Friends "ingots" when answering,It will also form its own answer based on the massive information base of the WeChat web page,When the output information is longer,Instead of textual information,Ingot will send a unique document,Click on it to see the detailed answer。
As an instant messenger, after entering commands in the chat box, Yuanbao can also think deeply, compared to "Tencent Yuanbao", it will not show a lengthy thought process, more like a friend in the WeChat list who knows astronomy and geography.
BesidesWhen it comes to differences, the most obvious is the difference in the display interface.
The ingots in the WeChat list have added a "person", and when the organization answers, it will not be three black dots jumping around, but will immediately appear "The other party is typing". The answers given are also in the form of WeChat messages, and will contain a lot of rich and interesting little emojis.
In contrast, other AI interfaces are not in the form of a chat box, but more like an interactive interface that solves problems.
The anthropomorphism of WeChat ingots doesn't stop there. We can directly input voice in the chat box, unlike the "Tencent Yuanbao" interface that converts voice input directly into text, the voice sent by WeChat Yuanbao directly exists in the form of a voice bar, which is more like chatting with friends.
However, unlike Tencent Yuanbao, WeChat Yuanbao currently does not support sending picture-type messages.
In addition to the anthropomorphic characteristics, the biggest advantage of WeChat ingots is to access the massive data information inside WeChat. For example, let's say we want to search for articles on the latest developments in the field of AI.
Click on the document, there will be two types of article sources, one is the web article, the other is the WeChat public account article, click to jump to the corresponding article, but at present, the search article is incomplete, and the quality is not high.
In addition, the most prominent function of WeChat ingots is to analyze official account articles and documents. When we read, we can directly forward the push to the ingots for analysis.
Judging from the actual evaluation, at present, WeChat Ingot does not support direct recommendation of relevant articles or videos based on the questions raised by users, nor does it give a link to the corresponding official account article or video.
But compared to other AI tools, WeChat ingots are not only physically closer to the user, but also have more powerful anthropomorphic characteristics mentally.
If other AI is helping us solve problems at work and in daily life, the emergence of WeChat ingots can be said to be more like a friend in the list who knows everything and responds to messages in seconds anytime and anywhere.
At present, in the fierce competition of AI, the industry is experiencing the differentiation of technology paths and the reshaping of the market structure.
Backed by WeChat, an instant messaging tool, Yuanbao is naturally close to a large number of user groups, as well as the exclusive ecological content pool including official account articles, video accounts, and mini programs contained in WeChat itself, showing unique strategic positioning and ecological advantages.
In this context, WeChat ingotsingTrying to "get closer"transcend"Better".
"Closer" means that users can add ingots as WeChat contacts and perform text conversations, image analysis, document processing, and other operations directly in the chat window, without having to jump to a mini program or download additional apps.
This "closer" strategy enables ingots to integrate into users' daily social and work scenarios as "friends", which greatly improves user stickiness and frequency of use.
As a result, the strategic advantage of "closer" can help WeChat ingots avoid the endless competition for "better" in the AI field.
Traditional AI assistants may be "better" in terms of generation capabilities, but due to the fragmentation of use scenarios, it is difficult to truly integrate into the daily life of users, and it is difficult to form a deep dependence.
But on the other hand, how to truly integrate virtual AI into IM is a difficult problem for WeChat.
After all, WeChat is a social network built on people, and once it becomes a social network between people and AI, it is not only a matter of adding a dialog box, but also the entire social logic and product logic.
For example, interaction patterns need to be redesigned to accommodate the special relationship between humans and AI; AI accessing users' private data to provide personalized services may raise privacy concerns; The product logic also needs to be adjusted, and WeChat needs to rethink how to balance the interaction between people and between people and AI in the huge ecosystem, not only to maintain the consistency of user experience, but also to ensure the efficiency and intelligence of AI assistants......
The reason why there are so many "choices" is essentially because compared to Xiaohongshu, Douyin and even QQ, the core feature of WeChat is a private social network, based on the relationship chain of acquaintances, the content is mainly circulated in the circle of friends and private chats, and more attention is paid to personal privacy and interaction between acquaintances, and based on this, the ecology of information flow, small program transactions, and video accounts has been derived, and "friends have read/liked/bought" can be seen everywhere.
In such an ecosystem, what kind of attitude should an AI assistant use to communicate with people, how much it can intervene in the user's life, and how much it can be customized and proactive is a matter that is affected by the user's acceptance, the ecological characteristics of the platform, and the level of AI capabilities.
However, with the rapid evolution of AI technology, the era of AI and human interaction is bound to come, and in this process full of uncertainty, WeChat has to balance the advantages of its old era while becoming more of a breakthrough in the new era, and explore a way out on its own.
From "Ingot Red Envelope Cover Assistant" to "Ingot Treasure" is just the beginning, next, where else can Ingot go in WeChat? Or in the era of AI socialization, do users still need to follow some of the social rules of the old era and use a product that integrates the old and the new?
In the face of these questions, WeChat may not be ready to answer, or it may already have its own answers.