Yuanbao Search is launched, and Tencent is once again vying for the default entry.

Yesterday, Tencent's Yuanbao Search was officially opened to general users, providing an independent website so.qq.com. Users can also set it as the default search engine in the latest version of QQ Browser.

Previously, Tencent had opened the Yuanbao Search service to developers and enterprises through Tencent Cloud. The newly launched web version shares the same technical base with it, further expanding the capabilities previously available for AI products to call into products for ordinary users.

When answering the question from 36Kr about "why Tencent continues to expand its search layout", Li Ruizhang, product lead of the web version of Tencent Yuanbao Search, said that the team considers this matter more from the perspective of user needs. Relevant capabilities have been used in products such as Yuanbao, WorkBuddy and ima, while a large number of users are still accustomed to finding content through web pages, and large models have allowed the team to see opportunities to solve existing experience problems.

According to the data previously disclosed by Tencent, this set of capabilities has supported more than 50 core businesses including WorkBuddy, ima, Tencent FinTech, and Tencent Video, with hundreds of millions of daily calls. Among them, ima uses it to answer questions by combining knowledge bases and public network information, while Tencent Video uses it to support finding films based on plot and vague descriptions.

In Li Ruizhang's view, market size is the result after a product is well made. But getting users to switch to a new default entry means facing a market that has already changed.

The 57th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) shows that as of December 2025, the number of search engine users in China reached 782 million, accounting for 69.5% of the total internet users; one year earlier, the two figures were about 878 million and 79.2% respectively. The user scale has declined slightly, but it is still huge.

Against this background, Li Ruizhang admitted that some simple questions have been migrated to AI dialogue assistants. However, verifying original sources, finding official websites, downloading materials and reading different views still require users to access specific web pages. These demands are the reasons why Tencent chooses to retain the web product form.

Tencent has years of accumulation in this field. In 2013, Tencent merged the search-related business of Soso into Sogou; in 2021, Sogou completed privatization and became an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent. After the launch of Yuanbao Search, Tencent will still retain the Sogou brand.

According to Li Ruizhang, Sogou will continue to serve users with stable existing usage habits, while Yuanbao Search will more actively try different forms, and first win over groups who are willing to try new experiences.

This time, the key difference Tencent presents still lies in content.

According to Tencent, Yuanbao Search has built a hundred-billion-level web index, reached cooperation with 157 information sources in 13 industries, and accessed content including WeChat Official Accounts, Channels, and Tencent News. Large models participate in demand understanding, web page judgment, recall, sorting and answer organization. Users can first view the AI summary, then check the original source or continue to ask follow-up questions.

There are precedents for WeChat Official Account content to enter web search. Sogou's prospectus shows that Tencent opened Official Account content to Sogou as early as 2014. What is worth observing this time is how Yuanbao Search uses large models to reorganize these contents with other sources.

Li Ruizhang took health issues as an example to explain: professional medical institutions provide basic knowledge, official account articles supplement interpretations, and videos with doctors appearing on camera provide another way of explanation. The team hopes to combine several types of content to help users understand the same issue.

He also emphasized that WeChat content plays a supplementary role. If users only want to find WeChat content, WeChat itself already has a corresponding entry. The team has not disclosed quantitative data on the specific coverage of Official Accounts and Channels, and the improvement they bring to result quality.

Apart from content, what Tencent is trying to adjust is also the relationship between advertisements and results.

Yuanbao Search has not promised to cancel advertisements. Li Ruizhang is still optimistic about the commercial value of this business: when users query hotels or consult services, they have actively expressed their demands, and the advertising system can match advertisers accordingly; the more accurately AI understands the demands, the more room for improvement in ad matching and conversion.

The "restraint" proposed by Tencent is mainly implemented in the distinction between advertisements and natural results. Li Ruizhang said that the two adopt independent recall links and are separated on the page; for soft articles and marketing articles that appear in the form of ordinary web pages, the team identifies and filters them in the content understanding stage.

"We will not let commercial content interfere with the sorting and appearance of results in the natural result area," he said.

QQ Browser can provide initial traffic for the new product. What remains to be seen next is whether users are willing to stay. Li Ruizhang said that the team currently pays more attention to word-of-mouth, feedback and retention, and user scale is not the core goal at this stage.

"This is not something that can see results immediately, and we think it is a protracted war."