Tencent's Shunyu Yao says AI moats lie in products rather than models
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Tencent chief AI scientist Shunyu Yao says AI companies' competitive moats lie more in products than in models.
At the 2026 Future Science Prize event, he argued that an AI product that knows a user's schedule, relationships and activities, as WeChat could, is hard to replace even if a rival model is smarter. Yao made the remarks in response to Zhang Yaqin, who asked what moats model companies have.
Written by AI from the articles below · updated Nov 8, 9:28 PM ET
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- IThome · AINewsTencent's Shunyu Yao says AI moats lie in products, not models
AITencent chief AI scientist Shunyu Yao says AI companies' competitive moats lie more in products than in models. He argues that an AI product knowing a user's schedule, relationships and activities, as WeChat could, is hard to replace even if a rival model is smarter. Yao made the remarks at the 2026 Future Science Prize event, where Zhang Yaqin raised the question of what model companies' moats are.
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