China’s AI giants cosy up to virtual companions as loneliness drives chatbot revenue
The companies have each built their own answer to established foreign apps like Character.ai and Replika. Last year, Baidu launched Xiaokan Planet and Tencent’s online literature arm China Literature rolled out Zhumengdao. TikTok owner ByteDance released its Maoxiang app in March. The concept behind each of these products is roughly the same: they generate humanlike … Read more
