China's AI Application Boom: Yuanbao Among Top Leaders as Plugins Drive 81.5% of New Development

The AI application sector is experiencing explosive growth, with a December 2025 QuestMobile report revealing significant momentum in the market. According to the “AI Application Interaction Innovation and Ecosystem Implementation Report for the Second Half of 2025,” the industry has shifted toward multimodal technological breakthroughs and accelerated ecosystem expansion. The landscape is dominated by newcomers and emerging platforms that are reshaping how users interact with artificial intelligence.

AI-Native Apps Lead: Yuanbao Establishes Strong Position Alongside Rivals

The competitive ranking of AI-native applications reveals an intense battle for market dominance. Doubao leads with 155 million active users, followed closely by DeepSeek with 81.56 million users. Yuanbao secures third place with 20.84 million active users, establishing itself as a serious contender in the emerging AI app space. Beyond the top three, newer entrants are making waves—Ant Financial’s Afu and Lingguang have rapidly gained traction, ranking fourth and tenth respectively on the weekly active user leaderboard. This distribution demonstrates how quickly new players can capture user attention in this rapidly expanding market.

Investment Surge: AI Financing Accelerates Beyond 20% Growth

The capital markets are responding enthusiastically to the AI boom. From July through November 2025, the industry witnessed 186 investment and financing transactions, channeling a combined 33.67 billion yuan into AI ventures. This represents a 20.8% year-on-year increase, signaling strong investor confidence in the sector’s future potential. The sustained capital inflow reflects growing recognition that AI applications are no longer experimental—they represent a genuine market opportunity with immediate commercial viability.

Multimodal Technology Dominates: The Shift Toward Full-Spectrum AI Interaction

Technology preferences within the industry have crystallized around multimodal interaction, which now accounts for 73.3% of the market landscape. This overwhelming majority reflects developers’ recognition that users demand richer, more sophisticated forms of engagement. While full-modal large-scale models currently represent only 1.9% of deployments, industry observers view them as a critical frontier—a future-focused approach that will define the next generation of AI capabilities.

Plugins Power the Growth: 81.5% of New Applications Leverage Extended Functionality

The explosion of new AI applications reveals a clear technological preference: plugins dominate the innovation space, accounting for 81.5% of the 205 new applications tracked in the report. This concentration reflects strong market demand in specialized verticals, particularly AI image processing and AI professional consulting. Yuanbao exemplifies this strategy by integrating plugins that enhance its core capabilities, while other leading companies similarly leverage extended functionality to deliver more targeted value to users. This plugin-first approach enables rapid feature expansion without requiring fundamental architectural changes.

Ecosystem Development: Leading Platforms Build Comprehensive Integrated Solutions

Major technology companies are aggressively pursuing ecosystem strategies to cement their market positions. Tencent has achieved full-scenario matrix coverage through Yuanbao, creating a comprehensive user experience that spans multiple touchpoints and use cases. Meanwhile, Ant Group’s Lingguang app has achieved remarkable scaling, recording a 7-fold increase in daily active users—a testament to strong product-market fit and effective user acquisition strategies. These ecosystem plays represent a strategic shift away from single-purpose applications toward integrated platforms that address multiple user needs within cohesive environments.

Mobile Agents Reshape Interaction: From App-Centric to Intelligence-Driven Experiences

Mobile manufacturers are spearheading a fundamental transformation in how users interact with devices. Through “screen-viewing + screen-tapping” GUI intelligent agent technology, companies are transitioning from traditional “app-driven” interaction models toward “intelligent agent-driven” experiences. This shift promises enhanced user experience and measurably improved task completion efficiency, positioning intelligent agents as the next frontier in device interaction design.

The convergence of multimodal capabilities, ecosystem integration, and intelligent agent technology creates a powerful foundation for sustained AI application growth. As Yuanbao, Lingguang, and competing platforms demonstrate, the future belongs to those who can seamlessly integrate multiple interaction modalities while building comprehensive ecosystems that keep users engaged across diverse scenarios and use cases.