Nanshan District has launched an initiative to offer 100 training sessions over the coming year, aiming to empower 1,000 local enterprises and 10,000 professionals with AI tools.

A poster for Nanshan's AI initiative. File photos

Hosted by the Nanshan District Industry and Information Technology Bureau, the initiative kicked off on Aug. 31 at the Shenzhen Bay Science and Technology Ecology Park. A conference was held to promote AI adoption, with a special focus on Tencent's AI office agent WorkBuddy.

Cai Guangzhong, vice president of Tencent Group, said the initiative aims to bring AI tools directly into workplaces so that more people can become adept at using them.

"If AI is only mastered by a select few, it can hardly be called impactful innovation. When the technology becomes more accessible, innovation ceases to be the privilege of a minority," he said.

As part of the initiative, Tencent will send instructors into Nanshan's industrial parks to deliver lectures on product capabilities and scenario-based methodologies, ensuring that more professionals can master AI tools in practical settings.

Tencent's WorkBuddy, which has been live since early March, has been adopted in over 50 industries, including education, retail, finance, media, and transportation. According to data released by the third-party research firm Analysys, WorkBuddy recorded over 20 million monthly visits in June, topping the domestic PC-based AI office agent market.

Attendees listen to a lecture on Tencent's WorkBuddy on Aug. 31.

During the launch event, Huang Qiukai, head of marketing for Tencent Cloud's ecosystem partnerships, demonstrated how organizations can leverage WorkBuddy to restructure workflows and boost efficiency. Users simply describe their tasks in plain language, and WorkBuddy handles writing, data and information analysis, and collaborative coordination in one seamless conversation.

Targeting individuals, startup entrepreneurs, and business owners, Nanshan District has developed a tiered approach to AI training:

For individual professionals, the district offers regular public welfare night-school courses covering everything from AI fundamentals to hands-on office applications. To date, Nanshan has held nearly 20 hands-on WorkBuddy workshops and five on-site deployment sessions, attended by over 1,500 people.

A screenshot of the WorkBuddy interface.

For startups and "one-person companies" (OPCs), a dedicated workshop helps attendees explore AI's commercial potential in content creation, product definition, and market expansion, empowering entrepreneurs to reshape their workflows with AI.

For corporate executives, sharing sessions focus on digital upgrading strategies, with experts providing in-depth analyses of AI applications across manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and other sectors.

To encourage wider AI adoption, the district has rolled out supportive policies offering subsidies and incentives to enterprises and individuals. Meanwhile, Tencent is offering discounted prices on its AI tools and computing resources along with technical support, while the Shenzhen branch of the Bank of China has unveiled an AI computing power loan to provide low-interest financing for companies seeking AI transformation.

The initiative's first phase will cover 10 industrial parks, with plans to expand to universities, OPC communities, and broader society in the future.