Practical Guide to Chinese AI Tools: Chat, Images, Video, and Work (2026)

For many expats living and working in China, artificial intelligence still feels oddly out of reach. Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity are widely discussed internationally, but they are not easily accessible inside mainland China.

What is less widely known is that China has built a large domestic AI ecosystem of its own. Major technology companies and specialised startups now offer tools for writing, translation, research, image creation, video generation, and office productivity. Many are inexpensive, widely used, and available without a VPN.

For professionals working in China, the challenge is no longer access. It is knowing which tools exist, what they are good at, and where to begin.

This guide provides a practical overview of the main Chinese AI tools available in 2026 and how they can be used for everyday work.

What Has Changed

Scale and Competition

China now has more than a dozen significant foundation-model providers. Major technology companies and specialised AI startups compete aggressively on performance and price.

Multimodal Capability

Leading platforms increasingly support combinations of text, image, video, and audio within unified systems.

Enterprise Support

Alibaba Cloud, Baidu, Tencent, and ByteDance all provide structured enterprise access, including APIs, administrative controls, and data localisation within mainland China.

A Practical Decision Framework

For most users, AI tools fall into six practical categories:

General writing and drafting
Research and long-document analysis
Coding and technical work
Image generation
Video generation
Audio transcription and speech tools

Enterprise APIs typically span all of these areas.

1. General Writing and Drafting

For email drafting, bilingual rewriting, and everyday business communication, several Chinese AI assistants work well.

Alibaba Qwen (通义千问)

AI assistant for writing, translation, coding, and research.

Public assistant: https://tongyi.aliyun.com

The public Qwen assistant works similarly to ChatGPT. It can help with writing emails, translating text, brainstorming ideas, and summarising documents.

Enterprise Platform (Bailian 百炼)

https://bailian.aliyun.com

Alibaba Cloud’s developer and enterprise platform provides API access, custom AI applications, workflow automation, and integration with company systems.

ByteDance Doubao (豆包)

Web/App: https://www.doubao.com

Doubao is one of the most widely used consumer AI assistants in China. It is developed by ByteDance, the company behind TikTok and Douyin.

The tool works much like other AI chat assistants. Users can draft emails, translate text, summarise documents, brainstorm ideas, or ask general questions. It also supports image understanding and basic coding assistance.

For many users in China, Doubao is one of the easiest AI tools to start with because the interface is simple and responses are strong in both Chinese and English.

Enterprise API (Volcano Engine Ark)

Web/App: https://www.volcengine.com

(On Volcano Engine, look for the Ark / 模型服务 / 大模型 related sections after login.)

Volcano Engine is ByteDance’s cloud platform. Businesses and developers can access Doubao’s underlying AI models through APIs to build AI-powered tools, automate workflows, or integrate AI features into websites and internal systems.

DeepSeek

Web: https://chat.deepseek.com

DeepSeek is one of the most widely discussed AI models in China and internationally. It is particularly strong at tasks requiring logical reasoning, structured analysis, and technical problem-solving.

It performs well when analysing documents, explaining complex topics, writing structured reports, or assisting with coding. Many developers and analysts use DeepSeek because it handles technical questions reliably.

DeepSeek supports file reading (including document uploads) through its web interface.

Platform: https://platform.deepseek.com

The platform allows developers and companies to integrate DeepSeek into software, websites, or internal systems.

API documentation: https://api-docs.deepseek.com

Zhipu AI (GLM / BigModel)

Web: https://chatglm.cn

ChatGLM is Zhipu AI’s public assistant. It supports writing, translation, document summaries, coding assistance, and research tasks.

Zhipu AI originated from research at Tsinghua University and has become one of China’s leading foundation-model companies. Its GLM models are widely used in government projects, universities, and enterprise systems.

Enterprise/API Platform

https://open.bigmodel.cn

BigModel provides API access to the GLM model family so companies can build AI applications or integrate AI capabilities into internal systems.

For most non-technical users, tools such as Qwen or Doubao are simpler starting points.

2. Research and Long Documents

Research-focused AI tools are designed to read long documents, analyse multiple sources, and organise information into structured answers.

For professionals working with reports, policy documents, academic papers, or lengthy PDFs, these tools can be significantly more useful than standard chat assistants.

Moonshot AI Kimi

Web: https://www.kimi.com

Kimi is one of China’s best-known AI tools for analysing long documents. It can process large reports, research papers, contracts, or policy documents.

Users often upload long PDFs and ask detailed questions about the content. The system can summarise documents, extract key points, and organise complex information into clear explanations.

Because of its long-context capability, Kimi is particularly popular with researchers and analysts.

Alibaba Bailian Deep Research

Enterprise Platform: https://bailian.aliyun.com

Alibaba Bailian also provides specialised research-oriented models designed for deeper document analysis and structured information retrieval.

These tools are typically used through APIs by companies building internal research systems, knowledge bases, or document-analysis workflows.

3. Coding and Technical Work

For developers, the key factor is how easily AI models integrate into software, applications, or internal systems.

Several Chinese AI providers offer APIs that allow developers to connect models directly to websites, apps, and enterprise infrastructure.

DeepSeek

Chat interface: https://chat.deepseek.com

Developer platform: https://platform.deepseek.com

DeepSeek is widely used by developers because it performs well on programming tasks, structured reasoning, and technical questions.

Alibaba Qwen-Coder

Platform: https://bailian.aliyun.com

Alibaba’s Bailian platform provides specialised Qwen coding models that assist with code generation, debugging, documentation, and automation.

Zhipu GLM Coding Models

Platform: https://open.bigmodel.cn

Zhipu AI also offers coding-focused models through its BigModel platform.

Most Chinese AI APIs follow formats similar to the OpenAI API, allowing developers to adapt existing integrations with minimal changes.

For organisations deploying AI internally, practical issues such as logging, rate limits, security controls, and reliability often matter more than small benchmark differences between models.