China’s artificial intelligence race has intensified dramatically with Zhipu AI’s introduction of AutoGLM Rumination, a powerful new free advanced research agent. This strategic release directly challenges competitors like DeepSeek and signals a potential shift in how advanced AI is accessed, potentially reshaping the market and accelerating China’s AI ambitions.

The Heat is On: Zhipu AI Disrupts China’s AI Landscape

What’s going on here? China’s already fierce artificial intelligence competition has reached new heights. AI startup Zhipu AI, renowned for its GLM models and Tsinghua University roots, has unveiled AutoGLM Rumination. This potent Zhipu AI free research tool is designed for sophisticated research and planning tasks, including comprehensive analysis, web searching, and report generation.

What makes this launch particularly significant is Zhipu AI’s decision to provide this capable tool completely free of charge—a strategic move set to disrupt the competitive landscape. This follows closely on the heels of competitor DeepSeek’s introduction of Manus AI, marketed as a highly capable “general-purpose AI agent,” but offered through subscription. The timing of these advanced platform releases highlights the escalating battle for dominance among China’s leading AI companies.

Companies are clearly moving beyond simply developing foundational models. They’re now deploying increasingly autonomous agents designed to transform research and productivity methods. This evolution dramatically intensifies the domestic tech race, pushing the boundaries of AI’s practical applications. Offering AutoGLM Rumination for free represents a bold strategy in this high-stakes competition, directly aiming to democratize advanced AI and potentially reset market expectations.

Meet Zhipu AI: From University Spinoff to AI Powerhouse

Behind AutoGLM Rumination stands Zhipu AI (Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology), a rapidly rising force in China’s competitive AI landscape. Founded in 2019 as a spinoff from a prestigious Tsinghua University lab, Zhipu AI’s academic foundations provided a robust platform for its technological development. The company initially focused on building complex knowledge graphs, establishing essential groundwork for developing sophisticated AI understanding and reasoning capabilities.

From these beginnings, Zhipu AI pursued an ambitious development trajectory, achieving remarkable technological milestones. The company is known for its proprietary GLM (General Language Model) series, which powers its diverse product range. Key innovations include the widely-used ChatGLM bilingual dialogue models, which gained substantial user traction, and the groundbreaking “Ying” text-to-video model launched in mid-2024, demonstrating the company’s expansion beyond text-based applications.

Further innovation led to the AutoGLM smartphone agent later that year, highlighting the company’s focus on bringing AI to accessible platforms. This progress culminated in the January 2025 release of GLM-4. Zhipu AI confidently asserts that this large language model matches the performance of OpenAI’s influential GPT-4, underscoring its high technical standards and ambition to compete on the global stage.

This technological advancement is backed by substantial funding and strategic partnerships, reflecting strong market confidence in Zhipu’s potential. The company has secured major investments, including a significant $400 million round led by Saudi Aramco’s Prosperity7 Ventures in May 2024. Subsequent rounds followed, amounting to over $137 million by March 2025. Notably, the startup also enjoys backing from Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, highlighting its strategic importance within the national tech ecosystem. This robust support has fueled its growth, leading to an estimated valuation of approximately $2.8 billion as of September 2024. This positions Zhipu AI not merely as a promising startup, but as a formidable competitor challenging established AI leaders both domestically and potentially worldwide.

Inside AutoGLM Rumination: Speed, Efficiency, and ‘Think & Act’ Capabilities

What does this mean? Zhipu AI’s AutoGLM Rumination stands out as a powerful tool specifically engineered for complex research tasks. It features a sophisticated architecture focused on high performance and efficiency. Two key proprietary Zhipu AI models power its core functions: the GLM-Z1-Air handles reasoning, while the GLM-4-Air-0414 serves as the robust base large language model. This powerful combination enables the agent to effectively tackle demanding tasks, from intricate web searches to crafting comprehensive reports.

The underlying GLM architecture itself provides a significant advantage. It employs a unique hybrid design, combining elements of BERT-style models (known for deep contextual understanding) and GPT-style models (adept at generating coherent text). This approach aims for versatility across various language tasks and is specifically optimized for high accuracy in both Chinese and English. This built-in bilingual capability significantly expands its utility for international research and communication, a crucial feature in today’s interconnected world.

Building on this solid foundation, Zhipu AI presents AutoGLM Rumination as a comprehensive research assistant. Its capabilities extend well beyond simple information retrieval, offering a suite of functions designed to augment human intelligence and productivity, including deep research analysis, web searching, travel planning, and report generation:

Analyzing complex research deeply and synthesizing information.
Executing complex, multi-step web searches for thorough data collection.
Helping with logistical tasks, like planning detailed travel itineraries.
Creating structured content, such as research reports and summaries.

Importantly, Zhipu AI highlights major performance advantages, particularly compared to its direct competitor, DeepSeek. The company boldly claims its GLM-Z1-Air reasoning model matches the performance benchmarks of DeepSeek’s R1 model but operates 8 times faster while consuming significantly fewer computing resources. Zhipu asserts these models deliver comparable efficiency to DeepSeek R1 but run substantially faster with minimal computing requirements, potentially representing a breakthrough in accessible AI performance.

If independent testing confirms these claims, this significant edge in speed and efficiency could strongly attract users. It could lower barriers to accessing advanced AI, making powerful research tools viable on less powerful devices and reducing operational costs. This places considerable pressure on competitors who vie intensely on performance metrics and resource requirements.

Beyond raw processing speed, AutoGLM Rumination incorporates what Zhipu AI calls a “think and act” capability. This suggests more autonomous operation, distinguishing it from basic chatbots or search tools. The agent can engage in deep reasoning or “rumination,” actively seek necessary external information (such as through targeted web searches), and intelligently select and utilize various tools (like plugins or internal functions) to complete complex, multi-stage tasks, sometimes executing tasks autonomously. This advanced functionality positions the agent not just as an assistant but as a proactive partner capable of handling intricate workflows with potentially less direct human guidance, substantially improving user productivity and enabling more sophisticated research projects.

The Free Gambit: Challenging the Market with Open Access

Zhipu AI’s decision to launch AutoGLM Rumination as a completely free tool represents a major strategic gamble, directly challenging the payment models emerging in the competitive AI agent market. This move clearly demonstrates how Zhipu AI challenges DeepSeek, contrasting sharply with rivals like DeepSeek, which introduced its Manus AI – marketed as the “world’s first general-purpose AI agent” – with tiered pricing designed to generate revenue.

DeepSeek offers limited free access to Manus AI but clearly steers users toward its paid subscriptions. These include a starter plan at $39 per month and a more feature-rich pro plan at $199 per month. This pricing strategy clearly reflects DeepSeek’s focus on monetizing its advanced AI and targeting professionals or businesses willing to pay for premium capabilities.

By offering AutoGLM Rumination as a Zhipu AI free research tool, the company is making a calculated effort to rapidly gain market share and build user loyalty. This free model is poised to undercut competitors relying on subscriptions, potentially forcing a market adjustment where value propositions must be reconsidered. The immediate effect could be significantly faster adoption of AutoGLM Rumination, as the cost barrier for powerful AI research assistance is eliminated for a vast potential user base.

This strategy inherently promotes the democratization of advanced AI technology. It makes tools previously accessible mainly to well-funded organizations, large corporations, or affluent individuals available to students, independent researchers, small businesses, and users in developing regions. This could potentially create a more level playing field for innovation and research across diverse sectors and geographies.

However, the competition isn’t solely about price; it also involves the critical factors of performance and reliability. Zhipu AI makes bold claims about its underlying models offering superior speed and resource efficiency compared to DeepSeek’s. Conversely, DeepSeek emphasizes Manus AI’s strengths on specific benchmarks like GAIA, claiming superior performance in areas such as logical reasoning and complex tool use. This performance comparison is crucial. While being free significantly reduces the entry barrier, the long-term success of AutoGLM Rumination depends on whether it can substantiate its AutoGLM Rumination performance claims and demonstrate its value against established paid alternatives in real-world applications. The free strategy initiates the disruption, but proven performance and user satisfaction will ultimately determine its lasting market impact.

Why This Matters: Market Dynamics and China’s Broader Ambitions

Why should I care? Zhipu AI’s release of the free AutoGLM Rumination represents far more than a simple product launch. It’s a strategic move that intensifies China’s already competitive AI landscape and carries significant implications for users, markets, and the global AI ecosystem. By offering advanced research capabilities for free, Zhipu directly challenges the business models of competitors like DeepSeek and could establish a new paradigm for accessing sophisticated AI tools.

For markets: AI’s crowded, competitive canvas. Zhipu’s free introduction of AutoGLM Rumination is a bold move in the arena of AI giants, fundamentally transforming access to advanced research tools. With Zhipu’s own models, like GLM-4, competing with established international standards such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, and the company benefiting from substantial backing (including government-supported funding rounds), market attention may increasingly shift toward cost-effective, high-performance AI solutions emerging from China. This competitive pressure could trigger industry-wide adjustments, compelling other companies to reconsider their pricing and value propositions. Investors might identify new opportunities in the rapidly expanding AI sector as startups like Zhipu leverage technological breakthroughs and aggressive market strategies to diversify their offerings and attract large user bases. The availability of powerful free tools could also accelerate innovation by reducing experimentation costs for developers and researchers, enabling them to build new products on top of existing models.

What’s Next for Generative AI

The future of generative AI promises even more transformative developments. Several key trends will likely shape the evolution of these technologies:

Multimodal capabilities: Future models will increasingly work across different types of data (text, images, video, audio) simultaneously, enabling more sophisticated applications.
Improved reasoning: Research is focused on enhancing AI systems’ logical reasoning abilities, potentially leading to more reliable outputs for complex tasks.
Domain specialization: We’ll see more purpose-built models optimized for specific industries like healthcare, legal, financial services, and education.
Regulatory frameworks: Governments worldwide are developing AI regulations that will influence how these technologies are developed and deployed.
Ethical considerations: The industry will continue grappling with issues of bias, transparency, data privacy, and intellectual property rights.

As generative AI continues to evolve, its impact will likely extend far beyond current applications, potentially reshaping entire industries and creating new opportunities for innovation and economic growth.