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The billionaire told staff that half the company should focus on using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve existing businesses, while the other half explores new opportunities built around AI. Speaking at Tencent’s annual anniversary event, Ma compared its established operations to an army and its emerging AI businesses to a navy, a Bloomberg report claimed. “The army must leverage AI to maximise its efficiency, while we redeploy 50% of our personnel to the navy to support AI-native businesses ,” Ma said, according to people familiar with the event. Tencent founder Pony Ma wants employees to rethink their work. Those people described his remarks as a push for employees across Tencent to embrace AI, rather than an announcement of a sweeping restructuring.
After DeepSeek’s R1 model emerged in early 2025, he personally decided to integrate it into Tencent’s Yuanbao chatbot, according to the report. However, Yuanbao has struggled to challenge ByteDance’s Doubao, while Tencent’s development of large language models, which is the technology behind AI chatbots, has also faced setbacks. Tencent reported 115,927 employees as of June, compared with 111,221 a year earlier. Because the event was private, the people describing his remarks spoke anonymously.
Ma said the industry had entered an “Age of Discovery” and urged Tencent’s businesses to reconsider their role in the AI era, Bloomberg reported. Join conversation Share your thoughts in the comments Be respectful · TOI community guidelines The report said Ma’s comments prompted concerns about potential job cuts on Chinese social media. His message outlined two priorities: making existing operations more efficient and developing AI-native businesses, which are products and services built around AI from the outset. Ma also called for a more flexible corporate structure with fewer layers of middle management, allowing individual employees to take on greater responsibility. Tencent did not respond to Bloomberg’s emailed request for comment. Tencent is competing with ByteDance and Alibaba, as well as AI companies such as DeepSeek and Moonshot, to develop models and services that attract users and businesses. Ma has become more directly involved in that effort. At a shareholder meeting in May, Ma described Tencent as being aboard a “leaky ship. However, it remains unclear what organisational changes Tencent will pursue. People familiar with Ma’s speech characterised it as a call for companywide AI adoption. Tencent’s departments are already testing AI businesses across gaming, social media and financial services. Hundreds of its products have integrated its Hunyuan models, while WeChat is testing an AI agent designed to help users summarise group chats, pay bills and order deliveries. Your child uses AI every day. But do they understand it? Find out in the TOI AI Masterclass.