Retail, hospitality, healthcare, transport, financial and public services in China are gearing up to become smarter businesses, empowered by artificial intelligence (AI), using facial and object recognition, voice assistance, robotics, and Internet of Things, all leveraged on the mobile communication platform via WeChat.
The move aims to attract mobile internet users with a new immersive experience.
The dominant chat platform in China has diversified from consumer communication tools to business and government tools to reach connected users.
"We will continue with our principles to build efficient unique communication tools that fit users' requirements, creating more opportunities for businesses to add value for their users," said Allen Zhang, president of WeChat Group, a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings.
Speaking at WeChat Open Class Pro, an annual event that attracts developers, business partners, and merchants in Guangzhou, China, Mr Zhang said in the past eight years, WeChat has become a "buddy" for users, offering basic chat, socialisation, reading, payment, games and other services that are embedded in and influence people's lives.
September 2018 marked a major milestone for WeChat, as the platform reached over 1.08 billion daily active users, out of a population of 1.3 billion in China.
According to a WeChat report, in 2018 Chinese users sent 45 billion messages daily, a rise of 18%, while video and voice calls grew by 100%, with 410 million calls daily. WeChat usage grew across all age groups, especially for people aged 55 and higher, who tracked the fastest growth in 2018.
Mr Zhang said in 2017, WeChat launched "Mini Programs", a sub-application in WeChat.
Mini Programs is an open platform that allows developers, merchants, state agencies or non-technical people to develop services on WeChat. It helps broaden the services that are not often used and connects more offline services to online users. More than 600 million people use Mini Programs at least once a week for services or products from over 200 industry segments.
The number of transactions increased fivefold in 2018 and Mini Programs has more than 1.5 million developers. For example, France-based supermarket Carrefour uses WeChat Official Accounts and Tencent Social Ads to update customers about promotions.
Customers can make purchases on WeChat through Mini Programs in stores or online, and check out with WeChat Pay.
"Scan-and-Go", a service based on Mini Programs, has been introduced in offline stores. Shoppers can use WeChat to scan and pay without going to the cashier. Facial recognition payment was also adopted in some stores to enable shoppers to pay and exit quickly.
State agencies use Mini Programs to reduce queues and offer better online services. Small convenience stores in second-tier cities use it for customers to order goods and services online, offering home delivery.
Adoption of WeChat Pay is increasing in various industries and helping businesses learn users' preference through analytics, offering smart recommendations to users, said Mr Zhang.
Image recognition car licence plates enable highways and parking lots to receive payment faster and reduce labour costs. Gas stations such as China Oil use Internet of Things (IoT) for self-service oil stations by attaching RFID chips to cars, so the oil dispenser machine can recognise cars and deduct money from the WeChat account of car owners. Fashion stores use facial recognition to recommend choices to users.
WeChat, as a communication platform infrastructure, brings in more services that Tencent can monetise via advertisements, business solutions, and transaction fees among others.
Fook pharmacy chain uses robots with AI capability to diagnose basic symptoms and recommend medicine to customers.
Pizza Hut piloted a robot waiter that allows users to scan QR codes on tables and make orders via Mini Program. The robot delivers pizza to the table and deducts payment from WeChat Pay after users receive their food.
WeChat also introduced "iTalking", which enables voice-based commands via smart speakers in other IoT devices like smart cars.
