Gu Xuemei, co-founder of Lingyiwanwu and person in charge of pre-training and consumer products, left to start a business | Exclusive from Intelligence Emergence

Text by | Zhou Xinyu

Edited by | Su Jianxun

According to multiple independent sources, Gu Xuemei, the co-founder of Lingyi Wanwu, recently left the company. During her tenure at Lingyi Wanwu, she was mainly responsible for model pre-training and consumer (C-end) products. It is understood that Gu Xuemei is currently preparing to start her own business.

In response to the above information, Lingyi Wanwu told "Intelligent Emergence" that as the person in charge of model pre-training, Gu Xuemei left the company several months ago due to personal choices. The company respects her decision and thanks her for her contributions over the past year.

After giving up the pre-training of the general large model base, survival has become the prerequisite for Lingyi Wanwu's business layout.

Since 2025, Lingyi Wanwu's business focus has shifted from its original AI consumer applications and model APIs to more commercially mature business (B-end) scenarios such as digital humans, model customization, and deployment.

Relatively speaking, after frequent trial and error and adjustments in 2024, the C-end products, which are currently difficult to generate profits, have faded out of Lingyi Wanwu's business map.

As one of the co-founders who was among the first to be included in Li Kaifu's list of AI entrepreneurs, Gu Xuemei met Li Kaifu in 1999, and their professional intersection began at Google.

△Gu Xuemei. Source: Internet

In January 2005, Gu Xuemei joined Google. In February 2006, she was transferred to Google China, where Li Kaifu served as the president of the China region, and became the deputy director of the Google China Research Institute. At that time, she was also the highest - ranked engineer at Google China, reaching the T7 level.

As the first local female engineer at Google China, she mainly focused on the research and development of technologies such as large - scale distributed computing platforms, search recommendation and advertising, and knowledge graphs.

After leaving Google China in 2015, she served as the product and technology director of Alimama and the CTO of Cainiao Network at Alibaba. In 2021, she joined the ride - hailing platform T3 Chuxing as the chief scientist.

Li Kaifu once gave Gu Xuemei a very high evaluation. In a speech in 2015, he regarded Gu Xuemei as a model of "Google alumni" entrepreneurs: "My old colleague Gu Xuemei has stayed at Google for more than a decade. Now, she has finally embarked on the entrepreneurial path."

Later, when Li Kaifu joined the wave of AI entrepreneurship in 2023, Gu Xuemei became his top choice for team - building.

In Li Kaifu's words, Gu Xuemei, together with several co - founders such as Ma Jie, Qi Ruifeng, and Anita (Huang Huiwen), has a relationship with him of "willing to trust me, and I also trust them very much."

It can be said that these co - founders have formed the four most important corners of Lingyi Wanwu's business map since its establishment: Gu Xuemei was responsible for model training and C - end products, Ma Jie was in charge of B - end products, Qi Ruifeng was responsible for sales and commercialization, and Anita was in charge of brand marketing.

Many former employees of Lingyi Wanwu told us that Gu Xuemei was a very prestigious figure within the company. Internally, everyone still called her "Auntie" as they did during her time at Alibaba.

In 2023, "Auntie" also made extremely important decisions for Lingyi Wanwu's products: determining two major directions for AI products, one was productivity tools, and the other was role - playing products.

In the direction of productivity tools, Lingyi Wanwu launched the overseas office tool PopAi and its domestic version "Wanzhi"; in the direction of role - playing products, the team launched the overseas product Mona.

△Changes in the layout of Lingyi Wanwu's C - end products. Source: Chart by "Intelligent Emergence"

Soon, in the productivity tool market, PopAi achieved the feat of achieving a positive ROI (return on investment) in three months. An insider revealed that its ARR (annual recurring revenue) once reached $10 million.

However, in the second half of 2024, both the domestic version of PopAi, "Wanzhi", and the role - playing project Mona, which were launched by Lingyi Wanwu as key projects, ended in failure.

We learned that "Wanzhi" stopped operating just three months after its launch due to lower - than - expected user numbers. Mona's commercialization overseas was not very successful either, and its peak daily revenue was only in the thousands of dollars. Many employees recalled that in August 2024, Mona carried out a major lay - off.

After that, Lingyi Wanwu pinned its hopes for C - end products on AI search.

In November 2024, Mona and PopAi were successively integrated under Lingyi Wanwu's AI search product, BeaGo. The internal reason given was to use Mona to achieve BeaGo's commercialization and use PopAi as a supplement to the Bigo ecosystem.

There were actually early signs of Gu Xuemei's departure.

An insider told "Intelligent Emergence" that Gu Xuemei proposed to leave the company at the beginning of 2025. In December 2024, Gu Xuemei led the BeaGo team to hold a strategic meeting. After that, she faded out of Lingyi's management.

With Gu Xuemei's departure, half of Lingyi Wanwu's co - founders have left. In addition to Li Xiangang, who left at the end of 2023, "Intelligent Emergence" reported exclusively that Dai Zonghong, the co - founder and vice - president of technology at Lingyi Wanwu, also left recently to start his own business.

Welcome to communicate!