Wang Huiwen Returns to Lead Meituan's AI "Squad Leader" Role

According to recent reports by 36Kr, Wang Huiwen, the former co-founder of Meituan and founder of Lightyear AI, has returned to the frontlines to lead the exploration of AI applications at Meituan.

It is reported that Wang Huiwen leads the Meituan AI team, known as GN06. The team's current main business directions include emotional companionship and chatbots. Directly managed by Wang Huiwen, the team operates independently and does not belong to any specific business group. It focuses on exploring directions beyond the main business and operates independently from Meituan's existing large model teams and other AI teams.

As a university classmate of Wang Xing, the founder of Meituan, Wang Huiwen joined Meituan on December 18, 2010, and worked with Wang Xing for ten years. He retired from Meituan in January 2020 and founded the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) company "Lightyear AI" in 2018. In June 2023, he resigned as a director of Meituan due to "personal health reasons," and Meituan announced the acquisition of 100% of Wang Huiwen's "Lightyear AI" equity for approximately RMB 2.065 billion.

In August 2023, Wang Huiwen stepped down as a shareholder of Lightyear AI. In April this year, Wang Xing sent an internal email stating that Wang Huiwen was gradually recovering his health and would spend part of his time serving as a consultant for Meituan.

It is reported that one of GN06's main products is the AI emotional companionship product Wow, which was launched in November 2023 and is Meituan's first independent product in the AI application arena. Recently, Meituan also launched a new AI image generation application called "Miaoshua."

Editor: Ding Li