Mar 31, 08:22 AM

Zhipu AI Launches Free AutoGLM Rumination Agent on March 31, 2025, with 300 Million Yuan from Chengdu, Intensifying China's AI Race

Chinese artificial intelligence startup Zhipu AI has launched a new free AI agent named AutoGLM Rumination, intensifying the domestic tech race in China. The agent, unveiled on March 31, 2025, is capable of performing deep research, web searches, travel planning, and writing research reports, according to the company's CEO, Zhang Peng. The launch comes in the wake of a surge in Chinese AI product releases, spurred by DeepSeek's earlier introduction of a model that reportedly operates at significantly lower costs than its US counterparts. Zhipu AI's move to offer AutoGLM Rumination for free contrasts with competitor Manus, which charges up to $199 monthly for its AI agent services. Zhipu AI, which has secured three rounds of government-backed funding in March 2025, including a 300 million yuan investment from Chengdu, is leveraging its proprietary models, including GLM-4 for general use, GLM-Z1 for inference, GLM-Z1-Air for reasoning, and GLM-4-Air-0414, to power AutoGLM Rumination. The company claims that GLM-Z1-Air matches the performance of DeepSeek's R1 model while requiring significantly less computing resources, specifically up to eight times faster and one-thirtieth of the computing resources. In addition to its domestic focus, Zhipu AI's CEO has expressed the company's commitment to assisting other nations in developing their own AI models, signaling a broader ambition to contribute to global AI advancement. Zhipu AI plans to openly share its models, including GLM-Z1-Rumination, on April 14.