WorkBuddy's lead gives Tencent the largest user base to convert into paid team seats, while ByteDance's Doubao Work, at 2.05 million users, trails despite Doubao's 419 million.
Tencent’s WorkBuddy is the most used AI office agent in China, with 32.353 million monthly active users in September, according to QuestMobile’s third-quarter report on China’s AI application market. DoNews, reporting the release, said monthly active users across the AI office segment reached 142 million, up 50.6% year on year. Baidu’s Dazi (搭子) came second with 9.77 million and Alibaba’s Qwen Office (千问办公) third with 7.905 million.
The quarterly figures extend a lead that earlier data only hinted at. In August, EastFrontier reported Analysys figures showing WorkBuddy with 20.97 million desktop visits in June, a traffic count rather than a user count. The new QuestMobile numbers are monthly active users, and they put WorkBuddy ahead by a wide margin. An analysis published by 36Kr, republished from the WeChat account 强调Next, set the QuestMobile ranking beside newer Analysys desktop data, which shows WorkBuddy’s visits roughly quadrupling since June.
The figures need careful reading. QuestMobile adds up each product’s monthly active users across the platforms it covers, and users active on more than one are not deduplicated, according to 36Kr. The Analysys numbers count desktop app interactions, so each figure measures visits. Neither is a measure of paying customers.
WorkBuddy’s lead holds on both user and traffic measures
WorkBuddy had 32.353 million monthly active users in September, about 3.3 times Baidu’s Dazi and 4.1 times Alibaba’s Qwen Office, according to QuestMobile. Across its platforms, WorkBuddy recorded 836 million uses in the month, 36Kr reported. An analysis by AIX财经, republished by Huxiu, put WorkBuddy’s quarter-on-quarter growth at 647.1% and Dazi’s at 1,567.5%, the fastest on the list, partly because Dazi’s app only launched in August.
On Analysys’s desktop list, WorkBuddy logged 85.34 million visits in September, up from 20.97 million in June, about 4.07 times higher in three months, according to 36Kr. Qwen Office followed with 46.55 million visits and ByteDance’s Doubao Work with 30.39 million. The three together accounted for 53.1% of visits across the 20 products on the list.
The wider market is growing too. QuestMobile counted 546 million monthly active users of AI-native apps in September, up 82.1% year on year, DoNews reported, and said office agents grew 518.4% year on year on native apps and 512.2% on PC clients.
ByteDance’s consumer reach has not carried over to office work
The sharpest gap is inside ByteDance. Its Doubao app had 419 million monthly active users in September, the most of any AI-native app, while Doubao Work had 2.049 million, according to QuestMobile figures cited by 36Kr. Doubao Work launched in August, so some of the gap reflects timing. Huxiu’s analysis ranked it fifth among office agents.
Workplace software reach is also uneven. QuestMobile put September monthly active users of the PC versions of Tencent’s WeCom at 20.302 million, Alibaba’s DingTalk at 12.568 million and ByteDance’s Feishu at 1.935 million, while the Feishu app had 33.757 million, 36Kr reported.
Baidu’s second place comes with a published price. Baidu’s website lists Dazi enterprise seats at a limited-time price of RMB132 per seat per month, with a minimum of one seat, 36Kr reported. WorkBuddy’s domestic personal plans come in three monthly tiers of RMB70, RMB140 and RMB700, according to the same analysis, which gave no enterprise price for WorkBuddy.
Paid team seats will decide who keeps the lead
The 36Kr analysis argued that the contest is over who can turn individual trials into a fixed team expense, and that owning a company’s contact directory lowers the cost of reaching customers but no longer decides alone which vendor wins new budgets. It also cautioned that its figures come from different firms using different methods and cannot be read as a ranking of enterprise orders or paying customers.
That leaves the user lead as a starting position. The next markers are any disclosure of paid seats or enterprise revenue for WorkBuddy in Tencent’s results, and QuestMobile’s fourth-quarter data, which will show whether Dazi and Doubao Work can sustain the growth rates that came from their summer launches.