The AI market is shifting from entrance-driven growth to execution-driven growth, with AI-native Apps and terminal-based ecosystems forming dual main lines of interaction and a move toward end-to-end, cross-domain, high-value use cases.

Delivery capability and closed-loop fulfillment are the main drivers of office adoption, connecting content, communication, systems, organization, and external resources across five core elements within four scenarios to achieve deep scenario integration.

AI office is moving toward cross-terminal and cross-domain integration, with multi-terminal agents and full-scenario embedding as core goals; office agents on PC and mobile show strong YoY growth, signaling deeper adoption and higher stickiness.

AI-native Apps boast 546 million MAUs with an 82.1% YoY increase, per-capita usage of 88.2 times per month, and average session length of 173.5 minutes; top apps include Doubao, Qianwen, and DeepSeek with 419 million, 158 million, and 123 million MAUs respectively.

As of September 2026, comprehensive AI assistants reach 1.157 billion users (up 44% YoY); AI life assistants reach 347 million (up 55%); AI office MAUs total 142 million (up 50.6% YoY; notable players include WorkBuddy, Baidu Dazi, and Qianwen Office with 32.353 million, 9.77 million, and 7.905 million MAUs respectively.

Usage depth and stickiness rise as per-capita usage reaches 173.5 minutes, PC clients average 2.8 active days per month, and AI-native Apps show a peak during the Agent craze while maintaining high usage, indicating optimization of user structure rather than churn.

There is a de-intermediation trend with diversified cross-form delivery; AI office is transitioning across devices (web 46.3% to client 12.8%), with comprehensive assistants led by terminal manufacturers (48.9%) and AI-native Apps (42.7%).

The market converges on three entrances for AI interaction: (1) AI-native Apps with 546 million MAUs; (2) mobile internet native players leveraging payment/social chains and AI plug-ins with 639 million MAUs; (3) terminal manufacturers embedding AI via underlying systems totaling 783 million MAUs.

The QuestMobile AI Application Market Development Report for 2026 Q3 identifies two development lines—AI life (service delivery) and AI office (full-scenario embedding)—as drivers of market evolution, with convergence between AI-native Apps and terminal-manufacturer solutions on multiple entrances.

A key implication is that multi-terminal collaboration is becoming standard for AI office, and redesigning interaction logic across terminals to embed full scenarios into fragmented workflows will determine the viability of cross-channel strategies.