YiDa officially upgraded to AI YiDa! DingTalk CTO Zhu Hong: The era of personalized AI tools has arrived

On January 27, the Ding Summit’s developer-focused session "AI with Yida" was held at Alibaba's Xixi Campus in Hangzhou. DingTalk CTO Zhu Hong (alias: Yi Su) stated that AI Yida has officially completed the final piece of DingTalk's AI puzzle—an act not merely of decentralizing tool capabilities, but more importantly, a decentralization of creative power.

The Evolution of Yida and DingTalk Yida

Yida is a low-code application building platform independently developed by Alibaba, launched in March 2019. Users can drag and drop components to configure pages, forms, and workflows, then publish applications instantly across PC and mobile devices. In December 2020, DingTalk introduced its low-code development platform, “DingTalk Yida.”

A Fundamental Shift in the AI Era

Zhu Hong believes that by 2026, the foundational logic upon which the SaaS industry depends has fundamentally changed. In the past, users paid for features; now, in the AI era, they pay for outcomes, outputs, and guaranteed delivery—marking a leap forward in the software industry’s business paradigm. The productivity transformation driven by AI has already made significant progress.

AI as a Native Capability

In 2025, DingTalk released versions 1.0 and 1.1 of AI DingTalk—not simple feature upgrades, but an architectural overhaul. Zhu Hong emphasized: "We've made AI a native capability across all DingTalk products, not just an add-on." DingTalk opens up its product architecture, engineering capabilities, and methodologies to ecosystem developers, empowering them to efficiently and easily build customized AI applications.

DingTalk CTO Zhu Hong

Decentralizing Creative Power

Zhu Hong pointed out that AI Yida enables users to build their own AI applications tailored to specific business scenarios. The upgrade from Yida to AI Yida is not about installing smart lights into an old house—it's about rebuilding the entire structural framework. In the AI era, everyone is a developer, and natural language is the best programming language. With AI Yida, every employee and every role can have personalized AI tools.

Global Reach and Security Support

Currently, AI Yida possesses the technical foundation to serve enterprises globally. For clients highly sensitive to data security, DingTalk offers a private deployment solution for AI Yida, meeting enterprise needs in compliance, security, and controllability.

Igniting Inspiration with AI

Zhu Hong said: "Provide methods for ideas, and use AI to drive creation. No matter how small an idea may seem, if it solves a real-world problem, AI Yida becomes your lever. We hope technology will no longer be a barrier, but a magic pen in everyone’s hands. In this era of creators, let us together ignite every spark of inspiration with AI."

Technical Upgrades and Global Expansion of AI Yida

Yu Jun, Technical Director of AI Yida, introduced that AI Yida now supports major international cloud environments, multiple languages, and time zones, helping Chinese enterprises expand overseas. With one-click translation capabilities, applications built by customers can serve global markets.

AI Yida Technical Director Yu Jun

Shanghai Jingzhun Medical Co., Ltd.

Shanghai Jingzhun Medical is a high-tech startup with around 50 employees, focusing on the research and development of molecular diagnostic products. Li Xiang, Manager of both the Digital Department and Bioinformatics Department, said that as a research-driven company, resources must be concentrated on core products, and digitalization budgets are extremely limited. Traditional ERP and project management software are costly and difficult to maintain. They chose DingTalk + Yida because it is practical, cost-effective, and flexible enough to address urgent needs.

Li Xiang, Manager of Digital & Bioinformatics Departments, Shanghai Jingzhun Medical Co., Ltd.

Quanzhou Jinxiang Technology Co., Ltd.

Ong Zihao, General Manager of Quanzhou Jinxiang Technology, believes that in 1,000 days, software itself will no longer hold value, as AI continuously drives down software production costs. In the future, businesses won't pay for isolated functions. He chose DingTalk + Yida because DingTalk serves as an indispensable communication middleware—"communication is the application." Chinese users are accustomed to solving problems within chat groups, while Yida provides the rules and frameworks needed for AI implementation.

Ong Zihao, General Manager, Quanzhou Jinxiang Technology Co., Ltd.

The AI Yida Developer Community and New Monetization Paths

Xiong Wei-yi, General Manager of DingTalk AI Yida, introduced that Yida already has over 500,000 active developers, more than 1 million active organizations, and over 10 million applications. Given the vast market potential in the tens of billions, DingTalk aims to build the AI Yida developer community based on the principle of "DingTalk as the foundation, developers as the hub."

Xiong Wei-yi, General Manager of DingTalk AI Yida

A New Developer Certification System

The Yida developer certification system has been comprehensively upgraded. It no longer relies solely on exams, but evaluates developers through multi-dimensional metrics such as community contribution points, achievement badges, leaderboards, template fork counts, and order volumes. The number of people using a developer's work has become the most direct proof of its value.

New Success Stories in Developer Monetization

Xiong gave an example: Yuan, CEO of Qingdao Huang Ze Peng Network Technology, used to earn only 2,000 RMB per month. As the group leader of a grassroots Yida user community, he deepened his identity as a developer and achieved a single-project transaction value exceeding 500,000 RMB within five months, successfully launching his own business.

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