Finance
China's Zhipu AI launches free AI agent, intensifying domestic tech race
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 31, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 24, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 31, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 24, 2026
Zhipu AI has launched AutoGLM Rumination, a free AI agent, enhancing China's competitive AI market. The agent excels in research and planning tasks.
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese artificial intelligence startup Zhipu AI unveiled a free AI agent on Monday, joining a wave of similar launches in China's increasingly competitive AI market.
The product, called AutoGLM Rumination, can perform deep research as well as tasks including web searches, travel planning, and research report writing, CEO Zhang Peng said at a lunch event in Beijing.
The agent is powered by Zhipu's proprietary models, including its reasoning model GLM-Z1-Air and foundation model GLM-4-Air-0414. The company claims GLM-Z1-Air matches rival DeepSeek's R1 in performance while running up to eight times faster and requiring only one-thirtieth of the computing resources.
AI agents are systems designed to make decisions and execute a range of tasks autonomously.
The launch follows a surge in Chinese AI product releases after DeepSeek shook the industry earlier this year with a model that it said operated at substantially lower costs than U.S. rivals.
It also comes weeks after competitor Manus sparked interest with what it marketed as the world's first general AI agent.
While Manus charges users up to $199 monthly, Zhipu's AutoGLM Rumination will be available free of charge through the company's official channels, including its GLM model website and mobile app.
Zhipu AI, founded in 2019 as a spinoff from a Tsinghua University laboratory, has emerged as one of China's leading AI startups.
The company, which developed the GLM series of models, claims its latest large language model GLM4 outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4 on several benchmarks.
The startup made headlines earlier this month after securing three consecutive rounds of government-backed funding in a single month. The most recent investment came from the city of Chengdu, which injected 300 million yuan ($41.5 million) into the company.
(Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
The product is called AutoGLM Rumination, which can perform deep research and various tasks.
Zhipu's AutoGLM Rumination is available for free, while competitors like Manus charge up to $199 monthly.
The agent is powered by Zhipu's proprietary models, including GLM-Z1-Air and GLM-4-Air-0414.
Zhipu AI made headlines after securing three consecutive rounds of government-backed funding in a single month.
Zhipu AI was founded in 2019 as a spinoff from a Tsinghua University laboratory.
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