Tencent's WorkBuddy Enters Leapmotor, Cutting AI System Development Time by About 90%

WorkBuddy offers local file processing, multitasking and multi-Agent parallel operation, and Skills and MCP ecosystems. It has been deployed in Leapmotor's vehicle R&D, intelligent driving, connected vehicles, procurement and supply chain, audit, and other business scenarios. Leapmotor's vehicle team has built more than 40 such AI systems, covering software quality, engineering digitalization, smart cockpit evaluation, laboratory management, and other core business areas. Under the traditional model, these systems would have required more than 1,700 person-days cumulatively; with AI development, the work was compressed to 177 person-days, an average efficiency gain of about 90%.

One case is the stamping die management system, which covers 12 major modules. Stamping is the first of the four major vehicle manufacturing processes, and the precision of stamped parts directly determines body dimension matching and appearance quality. A large cover panel die can weigh dozens of tons and is expensive, with a long cycle from design to manufacturing. After a die enters production, die ledgers, stroke records, maintenance and repair, life monitoring, scrapping judgment, and other management modules have long relied on manual ledgers and the personal experience of veteran workers. Data is scattered and updated with delays, and an error or omission can directly affect production pace and body quality. Under the traditional process, requirements and design alone required 12 person-days, and system development about 70, totaling about 100 person-days. Such small but painful business needs are often difficult to prioritize in IT schedules. After WorkBuddy was deployed at Leapmotor, business staff built the system through human-machine collaboration using AI-generated code plus human review and integration. It took only 10 person-days and about two weeks to go live, saving about 90% of input and giving die lifecycle management a unified, real-time, traceable digital platform for the first time.

Another case is test vehicle rollout and delivery. Before a new car launch, temporary license plate processing, transport arrangements, and delivery progress for test vehicles used to rely on an Excel file passed among several departments, with missed feedback and wrong versions occurring. With WorkBuddy, Leapmotor employees built a test vehicle rollout and delivery tracking system covering three linked stages: rollout, temporary plates, and transport. It supports real-time tracking and one-screen display of 69 test vehicles, along with one-click feedback and closed-loop follow-up for temporary plate processing and transport arrangements. Traditional development would take about 45 person-days; with AI assistance, it was completed in 5 person-days, saving about 89% and significantly reducing cross-department communication costs.

The same development model is spreading across more of Leapmotor's vehicle R&D. The CTIC software quality management platform was compressed from about 90 person-days to 8, saving about 91%. The smart cockpit evaluation system went from 70 person-days to 7. The engineering digital platform Leap-X went from 180 person-days to 18. Leapmotor's LIMS laboratory information management system went from 150 person-days to 15, all with efficiency improvements of about 90%. AI has become standard productivity for Leapmotor's application system development.

WorkBuddy is also accelerating deployment in electronics and supply chain management. In intelligent driving, it helps rapidly build navigation product prototypes, speeding up function validation and iteration. In connected vehicles, it supports operations in handling traffic peaks and maintaining stable service and timely response during peak periods. In procurement and supply chain risk control, WorkBuddy helps build intelligent systems that automatically remind about price updates, move approval processes fully online, and use AI Agents to continuously track supplier operating conditions, shifting from after-the-fact remediation to proactive early warning and improving risk control efficiency.

Efficiency gains are the starting point; a deeper change is the accumulation of organizational experience. Business experience in die management, test vehicle scheduling, quality control, and supply chain risk was mostly held in senior employees' heads. Now, through WorkBuddy's Skills capabilities, it is packaged into reusable skills open to the whole company. Tencent and Leapmotor are continuing to deepen cooperation to bring WorkBuddy into more scenarios in R&D, production, supply, sales, and delivery, jointly advancing AI-native organization building and exploring more reference paths for AI Agent deployment in the auto industry.