Tencent launches ‘Buddy One’ AI agent to bring multiple apps together
Shenzhen (ANTARA) — Chinese technology company Tencent has launched the artificial intelligence (AI) agent Buddy One, which brings together multiple applications for office workers and can analyse data continuously.
“Today, taking this conference as an opportunity, we are officially launching a new suite of office applications, BuddyOne. We connect people, devices, systems and data so that big-data models can understand business contexts and be integrated into actual work,” Tencent Senior Executive Vice President and CEO of the Cloud and Smart Industries Group Dowson Tong said in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Thursday.
Tong made the remarks at the Tencent Global Digital Ecosystem Summit 2026, the company’s annual event bringing together partners and clients from various countries to discuss AI and cloud computing.
An AI agent is an advanced form of artificial intelligence that can not only answer questions but also carry out tasks automatically. While conventional AI mainly helps users think, an AI agent can help them take action and complete work.
“Since its launch in March this year, the number of tokens used by WorkBuddy has continued to rise. Corporate users now span 50 industries, and half of them are among China’s 500 largest companies. The number of partners and developers on the WorkBuddy development platform has also exceeded 50,000, with more than 200,000 skills available. The ecosystem is growing rapidly,” Tong added.
Tokens are the basic units AI uses to process text when receiving questions and generating answers. They are also used to calculate charges to users: the more tokens used, the higher the cost.
Tong said that for decades, digital office work had relied mainly on different document formats opened and edited in separate applications. In collaborative work, each person would make changes to their own version and send documents back and forth, making the process complicated and inefficient.
WorkBuddy, Tong said, can operate around the clock and deliver the results as soon as a task is completed.
“This means employees no longer need to operate systems manually, uploading and processing files one by one. They can assign tasks to WorkBuddy at any time, just as they would speak to a colleague,” Tong added.
Users with a Buddy One ID can connect the WorkBuddy AI agent to Tencent Meeting, Tencent Docs, IMA, Tencent’s knowledge-management space, and Tencent Drive, and manage them together through the agent.
At the event, Tencent and Visa also announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on cross-border payments, aiming to make payments easier for travellers through TenPay Global, Tencent’s cross-border payment platform, and Visa Pay.
For travellers to and from China, the collaboration will enable cross-border payments at participating merchants on the Weixin Pay and Visa networks, subject to applicable requirements.
Tencent and Visa also plan to deepen cooperation on cross-border remittances through Visa Direct, making it easier for more overseas senders to transfer funds into the Weixin Pay ecosystem.
The companies will also explore next-generation AI-agent payments supported by Visa Intelligent Commerce, in which AI agents help users select and purchase goods or services.