Tencent's cloud boss plays long game to patch 'leaky' AI ship

Tencent's cloud boss plays long game to patch'leaky' AI ship WorkBuddy's ascent signals a shift by Tencent to focus on enterprise agents rather than consumer chatbots. When Pony Ma called Tencent Holdings' artificial intelligence endeavor "a leaky ship" this summer, the billionaire founder sent ripples through a company that for years dominated the industry with WeChat. The social media and gaming leader was at the time struggling to catch the likes of DeepSeek in the post-ChatGPT age. One of his key lieutenants, Dowson Tong, came up with a surprising answer: Let's retool to focus on businesses. The Silicon Valley veteran focused the turnaround effort on something called WorkBuddy, then considered a side project within Tencent's sprawling internet portfolio.