(Yicai Global) March 31 -- Tencent Holdings has launched an updated version of its artificial intelligence assistant that includes smart creation, and the Chinese internet giant is also working on a ChatGPT-like AI bot.

The new AI assistant’s functions include digital human-like support able to "clone" images and voices, text dubbing, watermark removal, text-to-video conversion, template creation, and online video editing, Yao Tianheng, vice president of Tencent's content platform department, said at the Nerank conference yesterday.

Content creators can design their digital human avatars with a custom voice by uploading pictures, videos, and audio, allowing them to broadcast videos in no time, Yao said. But most AI creation services are behind paywalls, with only a small part available free of charge, Yicai Global found.

Tencent is also developing a ChatGPT-like bot that can be integrated with its instant messaging applications QQ and WeChat, The Paper reported yesterday, citing Tang Daosheng, senior executive vice president and chief executive of Tencent’s cloud and smart industries group. It will serve corporate users via Tencent's cloud services.

“Tencent will not rush to achieve success, and the first product will be ready after many iteration attempts, which will be a long-term process," President Martin Lau said on the Shenzhen-based firm's annual earnings conference on March 22.

After OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT took the AI industry by storm last November, some of the biggest Chinese tech companies have come out with similar products, including Baidu's Ernie Bot, 360 Security Technology's 360GPT, and Huawei Cloud's Pangu Drug Molecule Model.

China's AI expenditure will likely reach around USD14.8 billion this year, equal to about a 10th of the globe's total, according to International Data Corporation. Its AI market size will grow to about USD26.4 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate, or GAGR, of over 20 percent between 2021 and 2026, it added.

Tencent [HKG: 0700] edged up 0.2 percent to close at HKD385.60 (USD49.13) a share today, after earlier jumping by as much as 2.3 percent.

Editor: Martin Kadiev