Tencent, ByteDance, and Alibaba collectively enter the personal AI assistant market.

AI giants are vying for a new entry point: personal assistants.

In early September, Meta officially launched Muse, a personal AI agent product. Compared to past AI products that mainly revolved around chat windows, Muse aims to transform AI from a "question and answer" tool into a personal agent that can handle tasks for users in the long term.

To this end, Meta provides each user with an independent Muse Secure VM, essentially a cloud-based computer that is always online. It has its own browser and, with user authorization, can handle emails, schedule appointments, fill out forms, and continuously advance tasks towards a single goal. Even if the user temporarily leaves the app, some tasks can still continue.

Another personal agent company, Instinct, is also rapidly gaining investor attention. On September 28, Instinct announced the completion of a $1 billion funding round, reaching a valuation of $10 billion. Its products can help users plan trips, purchase daily necessities, book tickets, and manage subscriptions through text or voice.

The rise of Muse and Instinct has propelled Personal Agents to the forefront of a new round of competition in AI applications.

This trend quickly spread to the domestic market.

On September 22, at the Yunqi Conference, Alibaba's Qianwen clearly announced that it will accelerate the development of Personal Agent, hoping to move from "users using Qianwen" to "my Qianwen".

ByteDance is also accelerating the productization of this direction.

On September 29, an insider revealed that Doubao had begun internal testing of a personal assistant-oriented product since April of this year. The project was codenamed "Spell" and was previously mainly led by the Doubao mobile assistant team.

Tencent has also joined the competition.

Market sources indicate that Tencent is developing a Personal Agent product called "Handy Bot" and plans to launch a standalone app. Currently, Handy Bot has already launched a service account on WeChat, with its description simply stating "Your Personal AI Agent." As the product is still in the internal testing phase, its final form is subject to change.

Handy Bot is not the only personal assistant exploration project within Tencent.

Back in June, WeChat began gray-scale testing of its native AI assistant, "Xiaowei." Unlike Handy Bot, which was planned to appear as a standalone app, Xiaowei is integrated directly into WeChat. It can send messages and make phone calls via text or voice commands, and can also launch mini-programs to complete life services such as buying coffee.

Thus, Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent, three major internet companies, have all turned their attention to personal AI assistants.

However, the fact that major companies are flocking to it does not mean that Personal Agent has been validated.

On the one hand, a more difficult question for Personal Agents to answer might be: would users dare to let them do it?

Similar controversies have recently arisen. A Muse user authorized AI to process a transaction on Facebook Marketplace, after which Muse sent the buyer their home address and facilitated the offline transaction. The user later discovered that they had previously selected the "Allow Always" permission option, but they had assumed they would receive confirmation before crucial steps.

On the other hand, Personal Agents also need to address ecological issues.

A truly capable personal assistant needs to connect to a multitude of services, including shopping, travel, email, payments, and calendars. However, these platforms may not be willing to relinquish user relationships and transaction access to third-party agents. Amazon's recent restriction of Muse's access to its services demonstrates a potential new battle for entry points between agents and existing internet platforms.

Similarly, major domestic manufacturers cannot avoid this issue either.

From office agents to personal agents, major companies are gradually increasing their investment in "doing things for people." But right now, this seems more like a collective bet on the future gateway, rather than an answer that has already been validated by the market.

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