China’s Tencent is a sleeping giant in the global artificial intelligence race S

Question

China’s Tencent is a sleeping giant in the global artificial intelligence race

Source: https://qz.com/974408/tencents-wechat-gives-it-an-advantage-in-the-global-artificial-intelligence-race/

Further references:

Optimizing Your WeChat Strategy Through Data And Analytics

http://www.madjor.com/en/knowledge/optimizing-your-wechat-strategy-through-data-and-analytics

2017 WeChat User Behavior Report

https://chinachannel.co/1017-wechat-report-users/

The 2016 WeChat Data Report

http://blog.wechat.com/2016/12/29/the-2016-wechat-data-report/

Questions

WeChat has been aggressive in collecting user data.

1. What are different kinds of data WeChat has been collecting?

2. Explain with examples what specifically WeChat wants to do with the data?

3. In your own words, suggest how WeChat can improve its business with its big data. Be innovative in your answer.

4. What challenges WeChat is facing/will be facing with its big data strategy?

Explanation / Answer

WeChat has probably become an organization with power and magnitude we cannot even fathom. It is an all-in-one app that almost every average Chinese citizen uses. Now, let's get to the questions:

1. What are different kinds of data WeChat has been collecting?

WeChat has been collecting multiple types of data as per the article. They are:

Conversations: WeChat knows what you say in chat messages. It knows how you talk. This is very powerful data - conversations between people can hold a lot of information if processed properly. WeChat is capturing all of this

Location: WeChat has access to millions of location data every day. It knows where you are, where you're headed, where you've checked in, etc. And if you can link it to the information processed from conversation data, you have some very powerful information with you.

Consumer Behaviour: Since WeChat has its own payment wallet, it can give you a lot of data about consumer spending patterns

Trending content: WeChat knows what you are talking about and what you're sharing, what's in the news, and what different age groups find trending/cool. This is a lot of data we are talking about!

2. Explain with examples what specifically WeChat wants to do with the data?

WeChat, as we have seen, has access to humungous amounts of data. The average time spent on its app is probably even more than Facebook's suite of apps. Considering that WeChat has multiple services bundled into one, this means that an average Chinese citizen only needs one app for almost all of his daily needs. What does this mean? This means WeChat can use this data to predict market behaviour, consumer behaviour, what will sell, what will not sell, what do people like, what do they not like. It can use it to make a big break in the financial services sector (it is already into it). It is clearly going the predictive way.

3. In your own words, suggest how WeChat can improve its business with its big data. Be innovative in your answer.

WeChat can easily improve in multiple areas with the amount of data it collects. For example, WeChat is already heavily into financial services through its wallet applications. It now has access to consumer spending data, right till the level of small vegetable and fruit vendors. Using this amount of data, if the right analytics is applied, WeChat can easily predict the next big wave in the market, it can estimate what will be the next big thing in the financial services sector (digital) and use it to optimise its own services. It can even predict market directions and probably even financial flows throughout the country. It can basically tell or predict where the next big thing in China is going to be!

4. What challenges WeChat is facing/will be facing with its big data strategy?

The only major challenges with WeChat is that firstly, it is a latecomer to the AI space. We already have Amazon, Facebook, Apple, etc. who have taken giant strides in the AI space. However, this might not pose to be a major deterrent as the organization can always look for talented engineers from the market to work on furthering its venture into Artificial Intelligence.

Secondly, the major drawback might be that WeChat is currently present only in China. While it can give the company a whole picture of the Chinese demographics and the Chinese markets, it will not really be able to scale up beyond China. At one point, the markets in China will be saturated. In that case the company will find it difficult as it currently does not have a fallback plan as its monopoly is only in the Chinese market.

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