What does RongYun’s global smart communication cloud service with AI look like? | AI Competitiveness Interview

[*In-house Original*] In the era of generative AI and big model technology, RongYun, positioned as a "global smart communication cloud service provider," is transitioning from "communication channels" to "intelligent hubs."

“In today's fierce market competition, the implementation of a global strategy has significantly increased the requirements for products and technology. Companies like ours engaging in exports recognize deeply that the in-depth use of AI technology is the key pathway to improving product design and technology R&D efficiency,” said Song Qingchen, VP of RongYun's global internet business line.

To meet the diversified demands of the global market, RongYun has integrated dozens of mainstream big models and is about to launch a comprehensive AI platform, providing capabilities such as big model APIs, model fine-tuning, and private model deployment. RongYun's communication products are also actively integrating AI technology, providing a range of intelligent product solutions. For instance, the company has heavily invested in the development of SDK products that support real-time dialogue between humans and AI, empowering developers to realize various AI dialogue scenarios. It has also launched AI products that support real-time translation and simultaneous interpretation for cross-border communication.

The RongYun smart communication cloud platform is a cloud service platform that provides IM+RTC communication technology to customers, offering comprehensive solutions to clients in the fields of social entertainment, gaming, e-commerce, online education, internet healthcare, real estate, and travel. Currently, its platform has over 70 million daily active users, and over 6.7 billion messages are exchanged daily. It has already served more than 800,000 developers, over 2,200 corporate clients and partners worldwide.

Centered around the theme of "What AI competitiveness does a globalized new brand need," Ebrun conducted a series of interviews with numerous cross-border service enterprises to share how they are applying AI technology to enhance the services of overseas companies, helping them increase overall competitiveness. The following is the interview between Ebrun and Song Qingchen, VP of RongYun's global internet business line, which has been edited and collated.

Ebrun: Please introduce your company and its main business.

Song Qingchen: RongYun was established in 2015 and is positioned as a "global smart communication cloud service provider." The company's mission is to provide professional, simple, and stable Internet cloud communication PaaS and SaaS products for global digital construction, empowering developers and enterprises' innovation capabilities to continuously create new application scenarios and business value in the digital field.

RongYun's core management and technical backbone are from the China Mobile Feixin team, with nearly 20 years of experience in R&D in instant messaging and cloud computing. The team has previously led the architecture design and technical research and development of several national-level communication products, such as "China Mobile Feixin," "India JioChat," and "Saudi Beem," and has successfully tested product development capabilities in large-scale, high-concurrency scenarios.

After ten years of dedicated service, RongYun's internet communication platform has more than 70 million daily active users, over 420 million monthly active users, with a peak daily message volume of over 350 billion, and a daily message volume exceeding 67 billion. As of now, RongYun has served more than 800,000 developers and boasts over 1.55 million applications on its platform, serving more than 2,200 corporate clients and partners.

Ebrun: What are your products and their core application scenarios? How do they help global brands/businesses improve competitiveness?

Song Qingchen: The RongYun smart communication cloud platform provides IM+RTC communication technology to customers, offering comprehensive solutions to clients in a wide range of scenarios in the fields of social, entertainment, gaming, e-commerce, online education, internet healthcare, real estate, travel, banking, and more, and meeting diverse needs of different online interactive forms.

Our main products and their application values include:

1. IM Instant Messaging: Developers integrating RongYun's IM SDK can quickly integrate instant messaging and real-time network connection capabilities into their applications without the need to build server-side hardware infrastructure. It does not require the establishment of a parallel user system outside the app, synchronization of user accounts, or affect the app's existing system architecture and account system or ability to fit into the existing business system. We also provide a UI SDK to help clients reduce development costs and shorten development and product launch cycles.

2. RTC Real-time Audio-Visual Communication: By encapsulating complex internet real-time call technology, developers can quickly obtain real-time audio and visual capability by integrating RongYun's RTC SDK, significantly saving development time.

3. North Star Platform: A comprehensive data analytics product that provides comprehensive development and operation support for application development teams. Its problem diagnosis tool uses intelligent algorithms to quickly pinpoint faults such as message interruptions and call delays, greatly improving diagnostic efficiency. Real-time threshold-triggered alerts (SMS/email) help developers respond to risks promptly. The data monitoring module can provide real-time statistics on message data, user data, and session data, which meet the needs of developers for timely analysis of application system operation and operational staff to analyze user dynamics.

4. Data Hosting Service: It enables developers to lower the development and maintenance costs of user data storage, easily obtain friend relationship and group management capabilities, and built-in features like friends' online status display. Especially for those unprepared to have operations conditions or that need rapid integration and launch, the data hosting service provided can save clients' time and help them launch applications quickly.

5. Content Review Service: A product developed in collaboration with high-quality third-party review vendors, focusing on "content security," together with AI technology to provide full-stack intelligent content recognition for image, text, audio, and video content, helping clients accurately identify and filter illegal content in communication scenarios.

As a global leader in cloud communication services, RongYun has helped hundreds of export companies to connect with global users, covering industries like social, entertainment, e-commerce, and daily life. From Southeast Asia's social new star Chamet to the Middle East's "pan-entertainment" dark horse JACO, and from the North American e-commerce platform ShopShops to the cross-border logistics platform iMile, RongYun's strategy of “technology localization, global service” continues to strengthen the communication foundation for Chinese internet applications going global, becoming a benchmark case of “Chinese technology going global” in the process of globalizing the digital economy.

Ebrun: How has the rapid development of big model and generative AI technology brought about changes/upgrades to your products?

Song Qingchen: What Rongyun used to provide was a communication network specifically designed to meet the communication needs between people. In the early years, although some customers had the idea of trying to implement AI customer service, hoping to improve service efficiency and quality with new technology, at that time, due to the development level of previous-generation AI technology, AI customer service was limited and it was difficult to fully meet the diverse and complex actual needs of customers. At that time, AI customer service could only play a role in saving manpower in some specific and relatively fixed scenarios, saving about 20% to 30% of labor costs.

However, with the rapid development and progress of large model technology, AI now possesses more powerful capabilities. AI is increasingly able to accurately understand human speech, with a deeper analysis and grasp of the semantics and contexts of human language. Moreover, it can answer a variety of questions raised by human users in a way that is closer to human beings, and its replies are no longer mechanical and rigid, but more flexible, logical, and human.

Currently, Rongyun is in line with the trend of technological development and provides rich support for developers. On the one hand, we support developers to implement scenarios of human users communicating with AI, such as implementing virtual companionship functions in social applications, allowing users to interact with two-dimensional characters in the community at any time, or allowing AI to quickly respond to customer inquiries in e-commerce scenarios, providing answers to questions about product information, order status, and in the medical consultation field, providing preliminary analysis and suggestions for patients.

On the other hand, Rongyun also supports AI as a human assistant, helping to achieve better communication between people. For example, in social applications, we launched a chat assistant to provide users with topic suggestions and language refinement services. In online sales scenarios, AI serves as a co-pilot to assist sales personnel in better communicating with customers, providing support for sales strategies and product recommendations, and so on.

From information transmission to intelligent interaction, Rongyun has been continuously evolving in the direction of global intelligent communication cloud services.

Ebrun: How did your technical and product advantages accumulate?

Song Qingchen: First of all, our cloud communication products have a wide range of target customers, covering developers from all walks of life. Our cloud communication products have strong adaptability and compatibility, meeting the diverse needs of developers in different industries and fields, and also supporting developers to carry out innovative applications.

In the initial stage of AI product design, we did not develop in isolation, but actively conducted in-depth discussions with multiple customers. For AI products to land in different industries and scenes, we must analyze and study the landing scenarios in different industries in detail and comprehensively, fully understanding the specific needs and pain points of customers in different segmented scenarios. We have established a professional research team to collect the most authentic and urgent feedback and suggestions from customers through various methods such as on-site inspections, questionnaires, face-to-face communication, and so on.

Based on this information, we integrated dozens of mainstream large models to build a comprehensive AI MaaS platform, providing capabilities such as large model APIs, fine-tuning, and model private deployment, carefully planning and designing AI products suitable for communication scenarios, such as companion chatbots, chat assistants, office assistants, and conference intelligent assistants. We have launched a software development toolkit (SDK) that can meet the needs of different segmented scenarios, gradually building a matrix of AI products for communication scenarios in an agile development manner.

At the same time, we attach great importance to customer data analysis. Through the construction of an advanced data collection and analysis system, we can collect and organize various data generated by customers in the process of using the product in real time, including usage frequency, operational habits, functional preferences, and more. By utilizing big data analysis and artificial intelligence algorithms, we conduct in-depth exploration and analysis of this data to discover product problems and potential improvement directions. Based on the analysis results, we will adjust the product strategy in a timely manner, optimize product functions, and continuously improve underlying technologies.

Ebrun: From your perspective at the industry level, how effective and widespread is the application of AI technology and AI tools by global brands/cross-border companies? What changes and challenges are involved in this process?

Song Qingchen: In today's fiercely competitive market environment, the implementation of a global strategy has greatly raised the requirements for products and technology. Manufacturers like us who go global have realized that in-depth application of AI technology is a key path to improving product design and technological research and development efficiency. By using AI's powerful data analysis and content generation capabilities, we can more accurately grasp market trends and user needs, fully considering the details of product functions in the product design stage, reducing unnecessary trial and error costs, and expediting the development cycle.

At the same time, AI has also played a unique and creative role in formulating market promotion strategies. It is able to conduct in-depth analysis of massive market dynamics, consumer sentiment, and the moves of competitors, and has helped us formulate market promotion plans that are more targeted, innovative, and differentiated, attracting a wider range of customers worldwide.

In order to effectively meet the diversified needs of the global market, our products must actively connect with AI technology and open up new application scenarios. We have invested heavily in the development of SDK products that support real human-AI dialogue for external use, supporting developers to realize various AI dialogue scenarios. At the same time, our AI products support real-time translation and simultaneous interpretation in cross-border communication scenarios, eliminating language barriers. The applications developed can make global user communication more efficient and convenient, truly achieving barrier-free communication.

However, in the process of product development, we are faced with a significant challenge: the need to adapt to the ever-changing nature of AI technology. The development pace in the field of AI is extremely fast, with new technologies and models emerging continuously. It may be that just last week, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of Company A's large model and considered that it was very suitable for our products in terms of performance and functionality. But just a week later, Company B launched a brand new version of the model, which surpassed Company A's model in computing speed, accuracy, and the ability to handle complex tasks, requiring us to keep a sharp market insight, stay informed of industry trends, and be able to adopt more advanced technologies to optimize our products quickly.

In addition, our product design needs to fully adapt to the usage habits of users in different countries. Different countries and regions have unique cultural backgrounds, language habits, and writing styles. Taking Arab countries as an example, their writing habits are right-to-left, which is completely different from the left-to-right writing habits of most countries. In order to ensure that our products can provide a high-quality user experience globally, we have developed an AI translation KIT that supports different language UI layouts. This way, users can enjoy UI layouts that suit their usage habits regardless of the language they use, meeting the need to adapt applications to different language requirements.

Ebrun: What are your observations on the application of AI in the globalization of brands/cross-border e-commerce, and what trends do you expect in the coming years?

Song Qingchen: The application of AI in the globalization and cross-border e-commerce fields has presented a multi-dimensional penetration trend, its influence is constantly expanding and deepening into various aspects.

As an example of cross-border e-commerce, AI provides strong support for practitioners, helping them deal with intercultural and cross-lingual challenges with ease. With advanced natural language processing technology, AI can accurately understand the semantics and contexts of different languages, and generate product descriptions in different languages quickly and of high quality. These descriptions not only accurately convey the features and advantages of the products, but also make targeted adjustments based on the cultural background and consumption habits of the target market, in order to better attract local consumers. At the same time, through image generation technology, AI can automatically generate attractive advertisement copies and vivid and interesting live stream scripts, thus greatly saving labor and time costs.

In terms of market prediction, AI also plays a crucial role. It comprehensively analyzes global consumer trends, deeply understands the purchasing preferences and consumption behaviors of consumers in different regions by collecting and integrating data from various e-commerce platforms, social media, industry reports, and other channels. Meanwhile, AI can monitor social media hot trends in real time, capture current popular topics and trends, and analyze the changes in seasonal demands. Based on these analytical results, AI can accurately predict trendy products, and provide scientific restocking advice for businesses, helping them avoid the risks of inventory backlog and stockout.

In customer service, by analyzing user profiles, AI deeply understands information such as the interests, purchase history, and consumption capability of each user. Combined with real-time behavioral analysis, such as user browsing behavior on the website, dwell time, click records, etc., AI can provide accurate personalized recommendations for users. Whether it is product recommendations or service recommendations, it can meet the personalized needs of users and improve the user purchase conversion rate. Additionally, AI can achieve dynamic pricing based on market demand and competitive situation, ensuring that companies can enhance the competitiveness of their products while ensuring profitability.

In the future, specialized models tailored for specific scenarios in cross-border e-commerce will emerge. These models will combine technologies such as big data, machine learning, and deep learning, to conduct in-depth analysis and optimization of different scenarios in cross-border e-commerce, thereby improving product selection efficiency. Companies can use the precise data and analysis results provided by these models to quickly identify potential products, reducing the randomness and costs of product selection.

In addition, the combination of AR/VR and AI will bring a completely new shopping experience to cross-border e-commerce. Through AR/VR technology, consumers can experience immersive shopping such as virtual try-ons, 3D product displays, etc. They can vividly feel the appearance, dimensions, and texture of the products, just like shopping in physical stores. This immersive shopping experience will significantly improve consumer shopping satisfaction and loyalty, bringing new opportunities for the development of cross-border e-commerce.

AI steps into commercial reality, leading brands and cross-border e-commerce take the lead, 2025 Global New Brands AI Competitiveness Conference is scheduled for June 6th in Hangzhou. Themed “Evolution and Choice”, the conference is jointly hosted by Ebrun and Jia Yu Capital. Stay tuned: