(Yicai) Sept. 3 -- Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings has launched the WorkBuddy open platform, granting more than 100 ecosystem partners across smart hardware, applications, and developers access to its underlying artificial intelligence agent capabilities.

WorkBuddy’s smart hardware partners include Plaud, Rokid, Arashi Vision, iFlytek, Anker Innovations, Hollyland, and Jingdong Jingzao. Nine co-branded smart hardware products were showcased at the AI workbench open platform launch event yesterday.

For smart glasses, the microphone and camera collect data, while WorkBuddy handles understanding, planning, and execution in scenarios such as meeting minutes and memory retrieval. WorkBuddy was also integrated into recording cards, microphones, and headphones.

Ensuring that agents operate seamlessly across devices, systems, and scenarios is the main challenge for developers and enterprises, which requires integrating the ecosystem’s context, said Lin Zuolu, head of WorkBuddy's open ecosystem. The WorkBuddy team is actively developing operational tools to support its partners' business needs, he added.

In the future, service procurement may involve hardware manufacturers and AI office agent providers, allowing users to buy services directly from the former, an executive from a WorkBuddy hardware partner told Yicai. In addition to WorkBuddy, the company is also considering integrating more AI agents, the executive noted.

Other internet firms are also heavily focused on the AI office sector. At the end of July, Alibaba Group Holding began testing QwenWork, which integrates three AI agents -- QoderWork, Wukong, and MuleRun. Late last month, ByteDance launched its standalone AI office product Doubao Work, an agent-based product deeply integrated with its workplace collaboration platform Lark.

WorkBuddy was China’s leading desktop-native AI office agent platform in June, with monthly visits nearing 21 million, according to data from tech consultancy firm Analysys Manson. ByteDance’s TradeIDE ranked second.

Editor: Futura Costaglione