Chinese tech giant Tencent says AI bet pays off as core businesses outpace industry

Tencent Holdings reported full-year revenue of over 751 billion yuan ($109 billion) on Wednesday, a 14% year-on-year increase, with artificial intelligence (AI) beginning to deliver measurable gains across its core businesses.

The Chinese tech giant said AI has improved ad targeting and boosted player engagement in games, helping its domestic gaming revenue grow 18% to 164.2 billion yuan. International gaming revenue exceeded $10 billion for the first time, driven by strong performance from Supercell titles and PUBG Mobile.

Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng said the company's cash-generative core businesses are funding increased AI investments, including talent recruitment and infrastructure upgrades.

A notable development is Tencent's integration of QClaw – an AI agent product – directly into WeChat. The move gives Tencent a potential edge in China's nascent AI agent market by lowering adoption barriers: users can invoke the assistant within chat interfaces without switching apps. Whether this translates into sustained user retention remains to be seen, but the ecosystem advantage is clear.

Tencent has also reorganized its AI research structure and said its next-generation large language model, Hunyuan 3.0, will launch in April.

Notably absent from the earnings highlights was Video Account, the short-video platform Ma championed years ago as a key growth driver. The company reported user time on the platform grew over 20% but provided no breakout revenue figures – suggesting monetization remains in early stages.

Overseas expansion showed stronger momentum. Tencent Cloud is adding a new availability zone in Frankfurt, while its international game revenue grew 33% for the year. WeChat's cross-border payment network now covers 78 countries, with cross-border mini-program transactions up more than 70% in the second half of 2025.