“The AI hardware market does not have a correct answer; deeply focusing on one product can easily lead to misconceptions. ”
Author丨Wu You
Editor丨Liu Wei
Entering the office of XuanYuan Technology CEO Li Yunzhao, the desk is filled with figurines from “Nezha,” including Nezha, the Boundary Beast, and Shiji Niangniang… Li Yunzhao admires Nezha’s spirit of breaking through and resilience. These figurines are not just silent collectibles to him; they serve as emotional anchors that provide a sense of ownership and satisfaction.
In his view, even without AI figurines, emotional value and companionship can still be achieved. Therefore, he firmly asserts that “AI companionship” should not be regarded as an independent industry but rather as a derivative effect and result. Li Yunzhao emphasizes that XuanYuan Technology is fundamentally an AI robotics technology company, not a manufacturer of AI companion toys.
As a PhD from Harbin Institute of Technology’s Robotics Institute and a serial entrepreneur, Li Yunzhao led his team to win China’s first international championship in heavyweight combat robotics during his university years. His last venture focused on educational robots, which took six years to become profitable but also incurred a nine-digit “tuition fee.” Riding the AI wave, he founded XuanYuan Technology, aiming to create consumer-grade AI robots that accompany users throughout their entire life cycle.
Li Yunzhao is confident in the company’s technical capabilities, especially in the fields of continuous perceptual memory and multimodal information fusion, hoping to imbue hardware with more “life-like qualities.” On-site, he had the Yonbo robot introduce the company, to which Yonbo responded in the voice of Zhu Bajie from “Black Myth: Wukong”: “X-Origin specializes in various challenges… emotional recognition, personality evolution, full-link closure, which cannot be compared to those shell AI products.” Li Yunzhao humorously referred to this Yonbo as his “best partner” on his entrepreneurial journey.
Despite his technical confidence, Li Yunzhao remains humble, clearly defining his responsibilities in technology, strategy, and investment. When discussing product details, he actively invites CPO Wei Yingda to join the conversation, providing a more professional perspective.
01
Starting a Business with Eight Partners for Seven Years: The Team is Back-to-Back Logic
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: You started your entrepreneurial journey in undergraduate studies, received special training from Harbin Institute of Technology, led your team to win China’s first heavyweight combat robotics international championship, later incubated ToB’s XuanChuang Robotics, and now founded XuanYuan to create AI companion hardware. What are the differences between these two entrepreneurial experiences?
Li Yunzhao:Entrepreneurship can be divided into three stages: the first stage is paying tuition, the second stage is doing business, and the third stage is building a career. My first entrepreneurial experience was in the tuition-paying stage, where I was cultivated as an innovative and entrepreneurial talent at school, focusing more on practice, learning, and understanding the essence of entrepreneurship. Now, XuanYuan is in the practical implementation stage; we have sorted out a complete business model and established strategic positioning.
Why the transition from XuanZhi to XuanYuan? Because we believe AI is an opportunity to reshape history. Since we want to do a grounded business, we need to think about the core demands of the AI era: what are the fundamental needs of humanity? AI is not just an accumulation of tools; it is a reconstruction of needs.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: How much tuition did you pay in your last entrepreneurial venture? What were the main areas?
Li Yunzhao:At least nine digits. The highest proportion of tuition was in product supply chain and business lines. No product is simple; behind the seemingly easy surface are countless details and traps. Our first-generation product had a definition error, leading to a supply chain collapse, costing us 30 million in tuition; entering the education sector had a low ceiling, and ToB/ToG business receivables were difficult, with immense pressure during special periods.
Entrepreneurship is like a foggy forest, where chaotic flowers can easily confuse the eyes. Without a clear main strategy, trying to do everything results in accomplishing nothing. However, these tuition fees have transformed into XuanYuan’s advantages: a battle-hardened team and a mature supply chain serve as an invisible moat for entrepreneurship.
However, we have not paid much tuition in terms of hiring. I have always been a leader among children, and I have had a relatively smooth experience in dealing with the team, where everyone can find their own positioning and foothold, and all the “gods” are in their places.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: You have eight partners who have been with you for seven years, which is uncommon in the entrepreneurial circle. What qualities or entrepreneurial philosophies do you think have allowed the team to support each other for so long?
Li Yunzhao:Initially driven by passion, the key in the later stages is the vision: clarifying the tasks and sharing the rewards with everyone, allowing the team to have expectations and aspirations.
Warren Buffett’s last speech left me with three memorable points: find a worthy cause to fight for, find companions, and commit to lifelong learning.
My personal abilities may be somewhat informal, and I do not pay much attention to many details. The key is to utilize people’s strengths and allow everyone to shine. After forming the current team, I have never envied any other team; our team is the best. If we cannot succeed, others will find it even harder.
Wei Yingda:I can add to this question. I was originally a member of the opposing team to Lao Li. We were both in Harbin, and Lao Li’s persistent spirit made me believe he would succeed. The first time I met him, he was developing in a very small office, working on the table and resting under it. He was very frugal. Even now, he spends most of his time in the company.
Lao Li invited me to join in 2017 and continued to invite me until I agreed in 2021.
02
There are Only Two and a Half Directions for AI to Land: AI Companionship is a Pseudo-Demand
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: Over the past seven years, transitioning from combat robots to companion robots, have you considered what technology can and cannot do during this process?
Li Yunzhao:I believe there are only two and a half directions for AI technology to land: the first is the tool attribute of reducing costs and increasing efficiency. For individuals, this means practicing spoken language, writing articles, translating, etc.; for enterprises, reducing costs and increasing efficiency is another dimension. The second is providing emotional value, understanding what you say, and giving better feedback. The third is the “magical moment” of cross-era interaction, which can be understood as the emergence of products with better interaction quality than before, such as AI glasses. However, the current technological development in the industry cannot meet human expectations for AI glasses, so it can only be considered half a direction.
XuanYuan’s current focus is more on the tool attribute and providing emotional value, following the path of consumer-grade AI products.
Wei Yingda:From a product manager’s perspective, I do not get too hung up on the boundaries of technology but rather focus on creating a combination of technologies, utilizing existing technologies to see what can be pieced together. Mobile phones and new energy vehicles are essentially combinations. The arrival of this AI era has significantly improved the interactive capabilities of AI in pure text.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: In fact, you have been thinking about AI companionship for a long time.
Li Yunzhao:I think more about the development direction of the AI era. In XuanYuan Technology’s vision, there is not a single mention of companionship because AI companionship is a pseudo-demand and a false proposition that cannot become an industry.
Our human friends not only have the function of companionship but also possess more tool attributes, such as helping with moving, fetching water, and being able to do many things together. Through daily interactions, the companionship effect is ultimately presented. Therefore, there should first be a biological entity that resembles a friend to create companionship; companionship itself is passive.
In other words, when technology cannot reach the level of a human, true companionship cannot be achieved. As I mentioned earlier, the provision of emotional value is closely related to companionship, but being able to provide emotional value does not equate to companionship.
Wei Yingda:We often joke internally that AI companionship is a pseudo-demand. If a person has a high spiritual pursuit, they do not need AI to pass the time. The optimal solution for human companionship is to have many friends, many close friends, and many confidants. AI companionship is not the optimal solution, but it can fill the psychological gap when there is no other human companionship, providing an outlet for expression.
Nowadays, everyone likes to pretend to be strong in public, hiding their weaknesses. If information security is done well enough, people can also reveal their vulnerable sides to AI robots, which is beneficial for mental health.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: Based on your understanding of companionship, what misconceptions do you think current players in the AI companion hardware market have regarding their products?
Li Yunzhao:Many products merely ride on the concept of AI companionship, lacking a proper understanding of AI technology. Existing technology is insufficient to recognize physical space and human emotions; so-called companionship is a dimensional reduction of emotional value. Ultimately, it is just a pile of functions or forced creation.
Wei Yingda:Companionship must generate emotional value, and there are many types and ways to achieve this. For example, we also provide a form of companionship through game development. Adding AI transforms linear companionship into intelligent companionship, where the fundamental meaning of companionship is to encourage users to invest more time.
Robot companionship is a new biological form that humanity has long fantasized about and will inevitably exist, positioned between pets and humans, capable of understanding clear instructions and exhibiting loyalty. Current technology can achieve robot companionship, but at this stage, it resembles a child.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: How do you view voice-interactive AI companionship? Many software products already focus on companionship; why venture into hardware?
Li Yunzhao:Voice is inherently the best interaction method, but it needs to be supplemented with the ability to analyze other factors, such as being able to see your expressions and perceive the surrounding environment, helping to solve complex problems in complex environments. Starting with voice interaction in AI hardware is not an issue; the challenge lies in how to provide more precise and intelligent feedback to people within this dimension, which is a problem everyone needs to delve into.
Wei Yingda:Voice interaction, like the basic memory logic of humans, saves conversations as events. With the rapid development of large model technology, this has been done well. However, purely software-based dialogue products are easily discarded because they lack a sense of ownership. An app can become just a fraction of its original value, but independent hardware can remain continuously online in the surroundings. Future hardware will resemble human partners rather than mere toys.
03
Creating AI Hardware with a Sense of Life: Achieving Continuous Perceptual Memory
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: XuanYuan’s vision is to create consumer-grade robots with a sense of life. How do you understand the “sense of life” in hardware?
Li Yunzhao:We aim to create hardware products with a sense of life by achieving continuous perceptual memory, emotional drive, and self-maintenance capabilities, thereby constructing a true artificial life system. This is also the ultimate goal of AGI.
The core difference between current AI and AGI lies in analytical and reasoning capabilities. To accurately assess scenarios and situations and provide appropriate feedback, multimodal information fusion must be achieved. Currently, multimodal fusion faces significant challenges, and visual bionic systems rely on real-time perception. We have successfully overcome these bottlenecks, enhancing decision-making accuracy. TTS technology achieves near-zero latency, and voiceprints can be replicated in just three seconds. We are also tackling complex scene multi-person dialogue technology.
Wei Yingda:The sense of life that Lao Li pursues differs from my understanding. The sense of life that Li seeks is truly natural feedback, with responses that possess spirit and richer voice. My pursuit of the sense of life involves some “shortcuts,” enhancing user experience in the productization process.
For example, adding presets to deepen conversations; giving robots expressions when turning on and off. We will also reference game development methods, adding story backgrounds to AI characters, making their personas more complex, stimulating users’ desire to communicate. Games are products that easily create dependency and make people lose track of time; replicating games into robot entities completes half the task.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: The first Yonbo targets children; what considerations led to this decision?
Wei Yingda:Actually, this is my personal wish. The initial intention of creating Yonbo was to give my son a romantic gift for Children’s Day. My son is seven years old, and during the product development process, we found that there are very few meaningful products available for children aged 4-8. Traditional toys like learning machines and writing pads do not cater to children’s desire for expression; almost all toys suppress children’s expression. We also hope that children can stay a bit further away from mobile phones and other indoctrinating products, which is the core motivation for creating this robot.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: Children often get bored quickly. The standard version of Yonbo is priced at $799; how do you persuade parents to pay?
Wei Yingda:It really comes down to how to reduce the product’s rate of being unused. The products with the lowest rate of being unused in the market are mobile phones, computers, and game consoles. Why are these products less likely to be unused? Because their content is continuously updated. Yonbo has something like a game manual; we will launch a major game task every 2-3 months, allowing children to experience new tasks. Yonbo remains the same, but the games are updated.
We will also create a full-scene consumer product based on individual-focused AI models, hoping that after users use one XuanYuan product, they can generate a personal XuanYuan memory. At that point, when we launch other products, memory can be seamlessly transferred, similar to changing to a new iPhone, making it less difficult.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: Have you considered emulating the logic of Xiao Tian Cai by adding social features to the product to increase user stickiness?
Wei Yingda:For a newly started company with a small user base, it is essential to first enhance the depth and experience of the product before starting to build social features. We have considered using AI to make friends, but discussing social features without users is ineffective; at least a million units need to be sold for everyone to engage.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: How does XuanYuan’s short-term memory technology differ in product functionality from other products?
Wei Yingda:Essentially, it extends the subconscious memory in the mind. The original memory schemes were context-based or used prompt word memory, and some relied on knowledge bases. The biggest issue in language communication is the significant time cost incurred.
Based on our method, Yonbo possesses local storage capabilities, allowing it to retain many prompt words in its memory. Through intent judgment models, it can call upon prompt words. When discussing family, it calls upon the family section; when discussing school, it calls upon the school section, effectively expanding the memory capacity for prompt words.
This requires some computational power to determine which model to invoke, and dynamically switching memory can also consume resources. We should be the most well-equipped companion robot currently available.
Additionally, part of this is for user privacy; what users say will be stored locally, not uploaded online or to the cloud, which is the minimum assurance for users.
It can be said that current domestic AI companion robots are all based on large model shells, with domestic access to Doubao. A product like Yonbo requires extensive capabilities in every technical direction, necessitating software development, hardware development, and front-end development. If there is only software or hardware, it is likely to rely on a solution for further development, leading to product homogenization.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: Many AI toy companies are attempting to collaborate with IPs to make them speak. Why hasn’t Yonbo taken this path?
Wei Yingda:We also have similar products, but we believe the biggest issue is the lack of a sense of topic. The core problem that Yonbo solves is the sense of topic, which we repeatedly mention as game-based thinking. It will tell you why it has come to your side and guide children to complete idiom games, becoming the best Yonbo. Simply making toys speak easily leads to a lack of topic.
We also have similar products; the Yonbo camera focuses more on tool attributes, hoping to carry a hundred thousand whys in children’s extracurricular activities, allowing them to ask questions and receive positive answers to enrich their knowledge. The goal is to explore the world.
04
There is No Correct Answer in the AI Hardware Market; Deeply Focusing on One Product Can Easily Lead to Misconceptions
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: Most companies focus on one product to seek PMF, but you are simultaneously launching the Yonbo robot and camera. Where does your confidence in launching multiple products come from? Are you not worried about resource dispersion?
Li Yunzhao:Our company’s technical architecture has been developed for three years and is very mature. The technical solutions are well-established, with memory, vision, hearing, voice, and hardware-software integration all interconnected. Therefore, for us, product development is quick and not difficult; the real challenge lies in how to operate a product.
Thus, once we define a product, we can control the R&D costs and time very well. Next, we only need to consider market strategies, determining which products are our own brands and which will go through channels, allowing us to better test the market.
Wei Yingda:AI hardware must not use conventional methods because there are currently no clear goals or giants in the AI hardware market; there is no correct answer. In this case, it is necessary to quickly accept feedback from the market and users to help the industry find direction. As pioneers in the industry, we cannot deeply focus on one area; we need to be adaptable.
Our current approach is straightforward: we have one product targeting the children’s niche market, performing better than other products. At the same time, we are also launching ecosystem-level products, quickly covering more users at a lower price, allowing everyone to obtain over 70% of Yonbo’s functionality for just 1% of the price, encouraging more people to join and co-build the ecosystem.
We are essentially developing for multiple users, testing which direction is more needed.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: How long does it currently take to develop a product?
Li Yunzhao:We iterate our products relatively quickly because our technical architecture is complete, and our content library is becoming increasingly rich. The fastest content can be completed in just one day, while hardware development typically takes 1-3 months. Ultimately, we are a company that places a greater emphasis on technological development. In this era, if you do not understand technology or lack your own technology strategy, you will quickly be left behind.
Wei Yingda:We have about four or five product lines, and some products are currently not convenient to disclose. Developing the Yonbo camera from scratch took about 100 days, while competitors might need at least two years.
Lei Feng Network·Whale Rhino: Finally, what message do you have for AI companionship entrepreneurs?
Wei Yingda:I hope everyone maintains innovation in the new track and does not apply traditional Chinese entrepreneurial culture to the AI track, where mutual plagiarism stifles innovation. This approach is incorrect; there are many survival opportunities in the new track, and we should strive to place China’s AI at the forefront of the world.
Li Yunzhao:We are now in an era where everything can be AI+. Finding your own niche and segmenting the field is essential, as there are definitely opportunities, but do not blindly pursue it without careful consideration; there are many pitfalls in hardware.
This article’s author has long focused on AI hardware. If you are also an entrepreneur or planning to start a business in AI hardware, feel free to add the author’s WeChat Yolanda_Zuu for communication.
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