China’s latest wave of interest in OpenClaw is increasing the willingness of price-conscious locals to spend on artificial intelligence tools, potentially boosting AI players in search of a monetization path. In particular, Hong Kong-traded Tencent shares were trending lower to start the year. But news last week that the company was integrating its own version of the popular AI agent across its apps helped the stock recover from nine-month lows. OpenClaw, an AI agent that can assist with personal computing tasks, has quickly become one of the most popular AI tools for people around the world to download and try out, despite the security risks. “Tencent’s AI prospects have been a recent source of investor concern and a factor behind… recent underperformance,” BNP Paribas analyst William Packer wrote in a report Tuesday. “Tencent’s chatbot downloads have lagged Bytedance by a wide margin exacerbating concerns around AI positioning alongside concerns on foundation model quality, chip availability and spend,” he said. “We expect Agentic AI newsflow to prove supportive, demonstrating Tencent’s strong upside potential in the next phase of AI development. BNP rates Tencent outperform, and has a price target of 825 Hong Kong dollars (about $105.38), or upside of more than 50% from Friday’s close. Tencent shares have jumped more than 5% over the last week, compared with Alibaba’s roughly 1.4% gain in Hong Kong tra …
