"Without Office, WPS will make more money"

How popular is WPS in the country?

An office software that has been superimposed with WPS membership, Doker membership, super membership, super membership Pro, AI membership, and grand membership...

One netizen’s comments hit the nail on the head: “Thanks to the existence of Office, otherwise WPS would be more unscrupulous in making money.”

Yesterday, netizens accused WPS of charging "a nesting doll-style fee" and it became a hot search. Many users complained that it was "ugly" and said that "Leibs is going downhill" and that it was "forcing me to uninstall it."

Behind the controversy, Sina Technology discovered that a year has passed since Kingsoft Office released WPS AI on April 18, 2023, but currently there are not many users of WPS AI. With the monthly active device numbers of WPS Office PC and mobile versions being 270 million and 329 million respectively, the most popular "paper outline" command in WPS AI has been used only 126,000 times in total, and the cumulative usage of the remaining commands is mostly between 20,000 and 40,000 times.

More importantly, nowadays, free software from independent AIGC is everywhere, and the technology and functions are comparable. "There are so many free and better apps, why should I spend money to use your WPS AI?"

“Although there are many functions, most of them are useless”

"I have purchased and used the WPS full-featured super member Pro package for many years. Kingsoft Software violated the service agreement and arbitrarily added the AI ​​and premium member packages. It will not provide the full software function service without additional payment. I require Kingsoft Software to restore the full software function." This is the statement made by a WPS member user on the Black Cat Complaints post reflecting WPS's nesting doll-style charging practices.

In fact, there are many people who share the same idea as this consumer. After the WPS membership nesting doll charging incident, a large number of consumers complained and commented. Many users said frankly, "It is true", and some consumers even lamented that "Finally someone complained" and "In front of WPS, Youku, iQiyi and Tencent Video are all inferior."

According to a relevant person in charge of WPS, WPS AI will start commercialization in March 2024, with a relatively large investment. "As a new membership service, WPS AI membership is still in grayscale testing and is a paid upgrade option. Users can choose it by themselves. If they choose not to upgrade, the original membership rights will not be affected in any way."

According to Sina Technology, WPS currently has four membership modes, namely registered membership, WPS super membership, AI membership and premium membership. The WPS product functions available to each type of membership increase accordingly, and the membership price also increases accordingly. Among them, the highest mode can use more than 250 functions built into WPS, while if you purchase other types of membership, some functions can only be used by paying separately.

Netizens believe that although there are more than 250 functions, only a few of them belong to the scope of daily usage scenarios, and "the other 80% are useless functions. This is because they know that users only buy the most comprehensive ones and they forcibly harvest users." Many members are dissatisfied with WPS's nested charging model but they can do nothing about it.

On the WPS Super Member payment details page, currently WPS Super Members will receive an additional 1-month AI membership experience benefit when purchasing a 15-month membership. The AI ​​membership capabilities that purchasing users can experience are indeed classified as "super value benefits."

After 120,000 uses in total, the most popular app is not popular anymore?

On April 18 last year, Kingsoft Office officially released a generative artificial intelligence application with large language model capabilities, tentatively codenamed "WPS AI". In July of the same year, Kingsoft Office officially launched WPS AI and simultaneously launched its official website. Since then, WPS AI has become the face of Kingsoft Office to highlight the company's AI product and technical strength and create the company's AI image.

In November 2023, WPS AI started public beta, and AI functions were gradually opened to all users for experience, and Android, iOS and Mac products were gradually opened; in April 2024, Kingsoft Office released WPS 365, a new-quality office productivity platform for organizations and enterprises, which includes upgraded WPS Office, the latest WPS AI Enterprise Edition and WPS Collaboration.

In the company's latest first quarter 2024 financial report, "WPS AI accelerates commercialization" has also become a focus of boosting the company's market confidence. However, one year after the release of WPS AI, how is the actual usage of this product?

Sina Technology found that currently, in the Inspiration Market launched by WPS AI for all WPS users, the most popular WPS AI operation command is "Paper Outline", with a cumulative usage of only 126,000 times; the second-ranked "PPT Outline Generation" has a cumulative usage of only 72,000 times.

According to the financial report, as of March 31, 2024, the number of monthly active devices of Kingsoft Office's main products was 602 million, a year-on-year increase of 2.21%. Among them, the number of monthly active devices of WPS Office PC version was 270 million, a year-on-year increase of 7.14%; the number of monthly active devices of mobile version was 329 million, a year-on-year decrease of 1.50%.

With such a huge user base, the most popular command has only been used 126,000 times in total, which is a rather meager figure.

Expert: It is difficult to improve efficiency of AI in office scenarios

In a conversation with Sina Technology, a senior AI industry insider pointed out two major pain points facing the current commercialization of WPS AI:

First, it is difficult to improve the efficiency of generative AI in office scenarios. Although Kingsoft Office has launched WPS AI, and industry giants such as Microsoft have also launched products such as Copilot, the exploratory significance of these products is still greater than their practical value. People who have personally used AI to generate tables and texts will find that these functions still need to be improved, and user habits are still difficult to change in the short term.

Second, the issue of user privacy protection during use. Generative AI requires a large amount of user data and information as training materials for capacity improvement, and these data come more from documents and other materials uploaded by users. In November 2023, Kingsoft Office was disgusted by users because of the words "For documents actively uploaded by users, they will be desensitized and used for training" in the WPS privacy agreement. The company later apologized publicly and made adjustments to the privacy agreement. If user privacy and data protection issues are not resolved, the commercialization of AI office is doomed to be difficult.

"The performance of AI office products cannot be guaranteed, and user privacy protection is also facing challenges. Now that WPS AI is being commercialized quickly, it is indeed a bit anxious." The person said. But for Kingsoft Office, it may not be in a hurry, and there is no way. After all, the research and development and investment of generative AI products require a large and long-term capital investment.

According to the first quarter financial report, Kingsoft Office's domestic personal office service subscription business contributed 60% of the company's revenue for the quarter with a revenue of 734 million yuan, and had the highest year-on-year growth rate of 24.8%, becoming the "locomotive" driving the company's performance growth. With the domestic institutional subscription and service business growing moderately, and the domestic institutional authorization business and international business being low or even declining, being able to "stack doll" to form a charging business is also a good business model.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.