The article explores the trend of internet business models evolving from To C (consumer-facing) and To B (business-facing) to To A (AI agent-facing), pointing out that tech giants such as Meituan, JD.com, Tencent, and Huawei are accelerating alliances to seize AI agent entry points and service access rights, reconstructing traffic distribution logic and industry division of labor, with the core being the struggle for an irreplaceable position in the new service chain dominated by AI agents.
Article author and source: World Model Factory
A week ago, Wang Xing said something during Meituan's Q1 2026 earnings call that many people may not have fully grasped.
He said that in the future, Meituan's service targets will no longer be just consumers (To C) and merchants (To B), and serving AI agents (To A) is becoming increasingly important.
To C and To B have been the basic business models of the Internet for the past twenty years.
But now, Wang Xing has proposed a new term: To A.
The truly radical aspect of this statement is that it doesn't treat the Agent as a tool, but rather redefines it as a customer.
If the agent is the customer, Meituan needs to consider how to make the agent more willing to promote Meituan, rather than just making the user more willing to open Meituan.
Behind this lies the fact that the internet's distribution logic is being quietly replaced.
The replacement speed was faster than expected.
To A Era of Business Warfare
In the same week that Wang Xing put forward his "To A" theory, three other things happened simultaneously.
During Meituan's earnings call, Wang Xing announced that Xiaomei AI Agent will be working closely with Tencent Yuanbao.
When a user says "I want to order takeout" in Yuanbao, Meituan takes care of everything else, from selecting a restaurant and placing the order to delivery.
Just now, it was also revealed that JD.com has partnered with Tencent on AI Agent and has also connected with terminal manufacturers such as Huawei, OPPO, and Honor.
Meanwhile, across the Pacific, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT will transform into a super app, integrating external applications such as Booking, Spotify, and Expedia, and focusing on becoming an agent that can autonomously help users complete various tasks.
Without any discussion, yet seemingly triggered by the same signal, a collective action has begun—tech giants are forming alliances.
This is very unusual.
In previous business battles, Douyin's attempts to access WeChat were directly blocked, Alibaba and Tencent blocked each other's links for nearly ten years, and Meituan and Ele.me fought a bloody subsidy war.
The business culture on the internet has always been one of open warfare and cutthroat competition.
But this time, they are forming an alliance, and very quickly. Why?
The reason lies in Wang Xing's words.
Today, the typical user's phone usage path is: to order takeout, open Meituan; to buy plane tickets, open Ctrip; to buy other items, open Taobao or JD.com.
Each app controls its own entry point, and traffic circulates within its own pool.
But once the Agent comes in, users will only need to say one sentence: "Book me Japanese food for tomorrow night." The Agent will understand the intent, invoke the service, and complete the order, without needing to open any app at all.
This is where the big companies truly feel threatened.
If users only communicate with the Agent from now on, will they still be part of the chain?
Looking at the numerous alliances formed between major companies this week, the logic becomes clear.
Meituan's Xiaomei platform integrated with Tencent's Yuanbao service, while JD.com partnered with Tencent and brought in Huawei, OPPO, and Honor. Essentially, all of these moves are aimed at capturing the top recommendation slots for agents (To A).
Therefore, this is not an ordinary business war, but rather a situation where, after the arrival of the To A era, the internet has begun to redistribute its functions, and all manufacturers want to protect their own territory.
Different routes to A
It's worth noting that different companies are using different approaches to reach customers (To A). Currently, this round of alliances among major companies is forming three distinct paths:
The first category is super portal + service provider.
Tencent's Yuanbao, WeChat, and ChatGPT are all doing this.
Tencent's Yuanbao service is integrated with Meituan, Tencent's traffic portal is integrated with JD.com, and OpenAI integrates Booking, Spotify, Expedia, Canva, and others into ChatGPT. Essentially, they are all about putting services such as food delivery, shopping, travel, content, design, and payment into a single agent portal.
They are vying for the first point of contact when users raise their demands.
The second type involves apps that encapsulate themselves as services that can be invoked.
Meituan Xiaomei, JD.com AI Agent, Taobao, Uber, Expedia, and OpenTable all belong to this category.
Their logic is very practical: if users no longer open me directly in the future, then I must at least ensure that I can still be invoked when the Agent makes decisions for the user.
It's better to retreat from the front-end entry point to the back-end capability layer than to be completely bypassed.
The third category involves mobile phone manufacturers creating system-level agent entry points.
Huawei's Xiaoyi, Honor's YOYO, OPPO, and Xiaomi are taking a more fundamental approach.
They may not necessarily handle food delivery, shopping, or social networking themselves, but they control the entry points to the mobile phone system.
The first thing a user says might be heard by the phone's AI assistant and then distributed to WeChat, JD.com, and Meituan.
This is an opportunity for mobile phone manufacturers to reposition themselves after losing their entry point in the App era, by leveraging Agents.
But some companies took a completely different path.
For example, Alibaba chose to first integrate its internal systems.
Qianwen, Taobao AI Shopping Guide, Alipay AI Wallet, and DingTalk AI Travel all integrate with Alibaba's own services. Fliggy, Gaode Maps, and Taobao Flash Sale are all within the scope of this integration.
Alibaba chose to first transform itself into a complete closed loop, so that when it outputs services to the outside world, it is already a packaged Alibaba service layer.
Regardless of the route taken, everyone is vying for an irreplaceable position in the new To A chain.
Where will To A go?
Forming an alliance is the first step in this business war, but not the end.
The current situation seems like a win-win situation:
Tencent Yuanbao gained access to the service capabilities of Meituan and JD.com, while Meituan and JD.com gained access to WeChat's traffic. Mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei and OPPO also joined in, each benefiting from the situation.
However, these collaborations have an inherent flaw: the interests of the entry point and the service provider are never entirely aligned.
Today Yuanbao uses Meituan, can it allow restaurants to register directly on its own platform tomorrow, bypassing Meituan?
ChatGPT is integrated with Booking today. Will it be able to directly connect to hotel inventory tomorrow, eliminating the need for OTA matching?
This is not a conspiracy theory, but rather a commercial temptation that any platform that controls a large enough entry point will face.
When WeChat launched its mini-programs, countless lightweight apps were absorbed into it; when Google Maps was launched, local navigation apps collectively disappeared.
If a super app can truly enable suppliers to be directly dispatched by its own agent, bypassing existing aggregation platforms for restaurants, hotels, ride-hailing, and shopping, then the existence of apps like Meituan and Ctrip will be in jeopardy.
Although this path is difficult to achieve, it is not entirely impossible.
Therefore, the alliances formed by major companies today are essentially service providers reserving their positions before the window closes, preferring to be invoked rather than bypassed.
They are betting that their service capabilities are strong enough to be irreplaceable, making the agent portal indispensable to them.
In addition, there are some other issues with this To A campaign.
For example, could agent recommendation services eventually evolve into a new form of pay-per-click ranking?
If so, Meituan and JD.com will have to pay for the user traffic they already have, adding an extra layer of toll fees out of thin air.
For example, if the Agent's recommendation results are problematic, who is responsible? Is it the portal provider or the service provider?
Nobody knows the answer, but everyone has already started running.
After all, in this To A restructuring, the most dangerous thing is not losing, but not hearing the starting gun.
