Core Viewpoint - The article discusses Meituan's strategic focus on AI infrastructure amidst intense competition in the food delivery market, highlighting the company's aggressive approach to AI development and application [3][5]. Group 1: AI Talent Acquisition and Leadership - Pan Xin, a former partner at Flash Technology and head of visual model AI platform at ByteDance, has joined Meituan to lead multimodal AI innovation [4]. - Meituan's AI strategy is built on three levels: AI at work, AI in products, and building large language models (LLMs) [6]. Group 2: AI Model Development and Applications - Since 2025, Meituan has made significant progress in developing foundational models and applications, completing a multimodal foundation that includes language, visual, audio, and video capabilities [8]. - In October, Meituan launched AI tools like "Kangaroo Advisor" and "Smart Manager" for restaurant merchants, making them available for free to all industry players [9]. Group 3: Recruitment and Business Focus - Meituan has been actively recruiting AI talent, particularly in model training, with high standards for candidates primarily sourced from Alibaba, Tencent, and other leading tech firms [7]. - The company is shifting its focus from independent consumer-facing AI applications to integrating AI into its core business operations [11].

Core Insights - Pan Xin, former partner at Flash AI and head of visual large model AI platform at ByteDance, has joined Meituan to lead multimodal AI innovation [1][2] - Meituan's AI strategy is aggressive, focusing on the development of its AI model LongCat and various applications [2][3] - The company is actively recruiting AI talent, particularly in model training, to enhance its AI capabilities [3][5] Group 1: Leadership and Strategy - Pan Xin has a strong background in AI, having worked at Google DeepMind, Baidu, Tencent, and ByteDance, where he focused on multimodal AI [1] - Meituan's founder Wang Xing emphasized an offensive strategy in AI technology, aiming to leverage AI for competitive advantage in the food delivery market [2][3] Group 2: AI Development and Applications - Since 2025, Meituan has made significant progress in building foundational AI models across various modalities, including language, visual, audio, and video [4][7] - The company has launched several AI tools for restaurant merchants, such as "Kangaroo Advisor" and "Smart Manager," which are offered for free to all industry merchants [5][8] Group 3: Recruitment and Talent Acquisition - Meituan's recruitment efforts for AI talent have not diminished, focusing on high-caliber candidates from leading tech firms [3][8] - The company is shifting its AI application focus from independent consumer-facing applications to integrating AI into its core business operations [8]