The AI application sector is currently in a fierce melee among a large number of players, and three golden high-potential niche tracks have ushered in their value realization window.
On July 28, the AI application sector staged an independent contrarian rally, with nearly 20 stocks hitting the daily limit. Multiple ChiNext targets including Anuoqi and Collab Software recorded 20% daily limit gains, as capital collectively bets on the dividends of AI application implementation.
In terms of news, Tencent WorkBuddy has officially launched on the HarmonyOS PC App Store, becoming the first native desktop office agent on the HarmonyOS platform. It is reported that this full-scenario office agent launched in March 2026 saw its monthly PC-side visits exceed 20.97 million three months after release, doubling from 8.85 million in the first month of launch.
Giants Kick Off the Dominance Competition
The implementation of a single product is only a microcosm of the industry. At present, domestic AI applications have bid farewell to the single model parameter competition. Large tech firms and vertical startups compete on the same stage, with C-end mass tools and B-end industrial agents accelerating development in parallel. A warring states era of fragmented competition for AI applications has fully begun.
As of June 2026, the total number of unique users reached by domestic mobile-side AI native apps and application plugins (before deduplication) is about 765 million, forming a nationwide trend of AI tooling. The track has derived four completely different development routes for large tech firms.
ByteDance bets on a pure AI native super entrance, with its Doubao leading the industry with 382 million MAUs, and the average monthly usage duration per user reaching 143.7 minutes. Relying on the full-domain traffic of Douyin, it penetrates mass demands such as daily copywriting and lightweight office work. There was a short-term user fluctuation after the launch of the 68-yuan monthly professional version of the platform.
Tencent builds differentiated barriers through two-track layout. On the one hand, it seizes the PC desktop office entrance relying on WorkBuddy, with deep adaptation to multiple terminals including HarmonyOS and Windows. On the other hand, it conducts gray test for Xiaowei, the built-in AI assistant in WeChat, to transform a huge number of mini programs into a Skill system that can be called by agents. It builds a mobile native AI operating system relying on 1.4 billion social users, forming a dual closed loop of "office productivity + life services".
Alibaba builds a complete AI office matrix by integrating the Tongyi large model and DingTalk with Tongyi Lingma, and launches the one-stop Tongyi Office desktop client, adopting a dual subscription model for individuals and enterprises to connect the full links of office creation, data processing and enterprise collaboration. At the same time, Alipay launched "Abao", an AI interaction entrance, integrating tens of thousands of life services on the platform.
Baidu, Ant Group and vertical startups are seizing the segmented blue ocean track. Ant Group anchors the national health demand to create the AI product Afu, and strategically takes a stake in Bohee Health to supplement the data of diet and weight management. The overseas revenue of Moonshot AI Kimi continues to rise, and the proportion of API business revenue increases steadily. HAIYI deeply cultivates the global multimodal creation track, and achieves positive operation by relying on high user renewal rate.
Global competition is also heating up. Google Gemini continues to expand relying on the Android ecosystem. Microsoft and NVIDIA jointly call for open weight models, making the open ecosystem stand against closed-source super applications. Both domestic and overseas markets show a mixed competition pattern of multi-party fragmentation without an absolute leader.
Focus on Three High-potential Tracks
It is widely believed that in the field of AI applications, three segmented tracks have medium and long-term allocation value.
The first is AI office agents. Policies clearly encourage AI to evolve into autonomous decision-making agents, and the digital transformation demand of small and medium-sized enterprises is being intensively released. Dozens of desktop office Agents on the market are competing on the same stage, and Tencent WorkBuddy, Alibaba Tongyi Office, and ByteDance Trae (AI IDE) form the first echelon.
Different from the early question-and-answer AI, the core of the new generation of office agents is autonomous task decomposition and multi-tool collaborative execution. Users only need to give natural language instructions to complete the delivery of complete work outputs such as PPT, data analysis, and video editing.
The subscription business model has been verified by the market. The pricing system of 98 yuan/month for the personal standard version of Tongyi Office and 198 yuan/month for enterprise seats has been widely accepted. At the same time, the ecology of information technology application innovation and HarmonyOS multi-terminal continues to expand, coupled with the release of information demand in the finance and government sectors, manufacturers such as Jinqiao Information and Nantian have achieved performance improvement relying on industry customized agents, and the track ranks first in the whole industry in profit certainty.
The second is real-time interactive AIGC. The research report of Industrial Securities shows that the new generation of real-time interactive models such as Wan-Streamer and ViduS1 have compressed the end-side response delay to 200ms. AI content has shifted from static one-time generation to streaming continuous interaction, and the three segments of digital humans, AI short dramas and interactive games have ushered in an implementation boom.
In terms of user data, in June 2026, the average monthly usage frequency and duration of AI native apps increased by 58.3% and 40% year-on-year respectively. Short video and game applications have achieved double growth in usage data with the help of AI, while traditional text search traffic continues to face pressure. On the platform side, Douyin's Interactive Space and Kuaishou's AI plot tools are accelerating iteration. On the creation side, products such as PixVerseGame, miHoYo and SeaSoul have opened up the long-term operation links of AI characters, short dramas and IPs.
Institutions predict that the market size of China's AIGC industry will reach 1665 billion yuan in 2026. The content interaction track leads the whole industrial chain in growth rate, and the three monetization paths of C-end membership, material points and B-end API are mature at the same time.
The third is industry vertical Agent. As the underlying industrial paradigm shifts comprehensively from the "traffic economy" of mobile Internet to the "Token economy" of AI, the mere user scale is no longer the core of valuation, and the industrial revenue created by per unit Token has become the core evaluation criterion of capital. Vertical industry agents are bound to exclusive industrial data, which naturally has differentiated barriers.
In the financial sector, Nantian Information has implemented AI risk control and marketing agents. In the pharmaceutical track, JPMorgan Chase covered the AIDD industry for the first time, and is optimistic about the commercialization prospects of AI new drug R&D of Insilico Medicine and Crysta Pharma Holdings. In the cross-border track, the generative engine (GEO) reconstructs the digital marketing link. On the industrial side, AI quality inspection and intelligent scheduling solutions continue to penetrate manufacturing enterprises.
At the same time, the iteration speed of domestic large models is accelerating, the independent controllability of underlying computing power is continuously promoted, and the demand for private deployment in government and enterprises is strong. The gross profit margin of vertical agents is generally higher than that of general dialogue products, making it a key layout direction for institutions.
In the long run, it is difficult for AI applications to replicate the "winner takes all" pattern of the mobile Internet. General super AI tools, vertical industry agents and real-time interactive content platforms will coexist in a layered manner for a long time. The upstream computing power cost continues to be optimized, policies continue to increase support for the implementation of the AI industry, and the two-way demand of downstream government, enterprises and C-end is expanding.
The launch of WorkBuddy on HarmonyOS PC on July 28 is just the starting point for agents to fully penetrate production and life. The final outcome of this hegemony competition in the AI industry does not belong to the players with the largest user base, but to the implementation players who can continuously convert computing power Tokens into real industrial value.