Xiaohongshu's Biggest Shake-Up Ever: Centralizing Power, Doubling Down on AI, and Going Global

A Long-Planned 'Grand Restructuring'

For years, Xiaohongshu has been labeled a 'slow company' by the outside world — slow to commercialize, slow to invest in technology, and slow to expand globally. However, news of its latest organizational restructuring has turned heads across the entire internet industry: Xiaohongshu is undertaking the largest organizational overhaul since its founding, with a newly appointed president set to oversee three core businesses — community, commercialization, and international expansion — while simultaneously steering the company's AI strategy.

This is far more than a simple personnel change. It reads as a comprehensive 'acceleration' signal at the strategic level. Xiaohongshu is attempting to use a highly centralized approach to break down internal silos, unifying dispersed business forces into a single thrust to address increasingly fierce market competition and the surging wave of AI technology.

Full Centralization: Three Business Lines Plus AI Under One Leader

According to multiple sources, the core of this restructuring lies in a significant concentration of power. The newly appointed president has not only taken over the two traditional pillars — community and commercialization — but has also brought international expansion and AI operations under unified command. This means that Xiaohongshu's four most critical fronts — content ecosystem, commercial monetization, international markets, and artificial intelligence — have been integrated into a single decision-making chain for the first time.

Previously, Xiaohongshu's organizational structure was relatively fragmented, with individual business lines operating in a somewhat siloed fashion. The community side prioritized content tone and user experience, while the commercialization side pursued advertising and e-commerce revenue — a tension that persisted for years. International expansion remained in an exploratory phase, lacking sufficient strategic priority. As for AI, although Xiaohongshu had made some moves, its investment and visibility paled in comparison to giants like ByteDance and Baidu.

The 'one person in charge' structural design is clearly intended to fundamentally resolve coordination inefficiencies. When the decision-maker for community, commercialization, international expansion, and AI is the same individual, the friction costs of resource allocation will drop dramatically, and the speed of strategic execution will increase significantly.

AI: From 'Following the Pack' to 'Must Run Full Speed'

In this restructuring, the AI division has been elevated to a strategic level on par with community, commercialization, and international expansion — a signal worth unpacking.

Over the past year, China's internet giants have universally embraced AI as a core strategy. ByteDance launched its Doubao large language model and rapidly integrated it across multiple products. Baidu restructured its business around the ERNIE model. Alibaba and Tencent have also continued to ramp up investments in large models and AI applications. By comparison, Xiaohongshu has maintained a relatively low profile in the AI space, with some observers going so far as to say the company had 'fallen behind' in the AI wave.

In reality, however, Xiaohongshu possesses unique advantages for AI development. As one of China's largest lifestyle-sharing platforms, it sits atop a massive trove of user-generated text, image, and video content spanning verticals such as beauty, fashion, food, travel, and home decor. This high-quality, relatively well-structured content data is precisely the valuable fuel needed to train vertical-domain AI models.

Placing AI under the president's direct oversight signals that Xiaohongshu is no longer content with small-scale AI experiments. Foreseeable directions include: leveraging AI to enhance content recommendation efficiency, developing AI-assisted creation tools to empower creators, reimagining how users access information through intelligent search and conversational interfaces, and using AI to power precision targeting in the commercial advertising system.

Particularly noteworthy is the growing 'search mindset' among Xiaohongshu's users. An increasing number of young users have made it a habit to search for lifestyle-related decisions on the platform — from 'where to eat' to 'how to renovate a home.' If Xiaohongshu can integrate AI conversational capabilities into its search experience and build a product akin to a 'lifestyle AI assistant,' it could unlock an entirely new growth frontier.

Going Global: The Second Curve That Can No Longer Wait

The inclusion of international expansion under unified management sends an equally strong signal — Xiaohongshu is upgrading internationalization from an 'exploratory project' to a 'strategic-level mission.'

Xiaohongshu is no stranger to the concept of going global. In its early days, the platform actually started as a community for sharing overseas shopping experiences. Over time, however, the company's focus shifted squarely to the domestic market, and overseas expansion never received systematic investment.

The current international landscape now presents a rare window of opportunity. TikTok faces regulatory pressure in multiple overseas markets, and some international users have begun seeking alternative platforms. Earlier this year, the 'TikTok refugee' phenomenon — in which a wave of overseas users flooded into Xiaohongshu — unexpectedly earned the company a surge of international attention. While the retention rate of this influx remains to be seen, it at least proved that Xiaohongshu's product format holds a degree of appeal in overseas markets.

Placing international expansion within the same decision-making framework as community, commercialization, and AI will help Xiaohongshu replicate domestically proven strategies in international markets while leveraging AI to solve key technical challenges such as cross-language content understanding and localized recommendations.

The Deeper Logic Behind Shedding the 'Slow Company' Label

Why has Xiaohongshu chosen this particular moment for such a sweeping overhaul? At least three driving forces are at play.

First, competitive pressure is forcing acceleration. Douyin and Kuaishou continue to erode market share in content-driven e-commerce, while WeChat Channels is also accelerating its commercialization efforts. If Xiaohongshu's prized community atmosphere and product-seeding capabilities cannot be more efficiently converted into commercial value, the platform risks becoming a mere stepping stone for competitors.

Second, the AI era does not tolerate 'slow.' Large language models and generative AI are reshaping the product logic and competitive landscape of the entire internet. For Xiaohongshu, AI is not a nice-to-have technological upgrade — it is an existential question that will determine whether the company remains competitive over the next five years. In this technological revolution, every delayed step risks falling an entire position behind.

Third, capital markets demand a new narrative. Xiaohongshu's valuation has reached a considerable level through successive funding rounds, yet the company has yet to go public. To maintain and enhance its valuation, it needs to present investors with a clear growth trajectory. Centralized management, an upgraded AI strategy, and international expansion as a second growth curve together form a logically coherent 'growth narrative.'

Challenges and Concerns

Of course, the centralization model is not without risks. Concentrating so many business lines in the hands of one individual places enormous demands on that leader's capabilities and bandwidth. Maintaining community tone requires patience and a slow hand; commercial monetization demands a fast pace; international expansion calls for localized thinking; and AI development requires deep technical expertise. Whether these four fundamentally different business logics can coexist harmoniously under a single decision-making system remains an open question.

Moreover, Xiaohongshu's core community value lies in its 'authentic' and 'warm' content ecosystem. If accelerated commercialization and AI intervention end up damaging this unique community atmosphere, it would be akin to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Striking the right balance between acceleration and preserving the community's soul will be the greatest challenge facing Xiaohongshu's leadership.

Outlook: A Faster Xiaohongshu

Regardless of the outcome, this organizational overhaul marks Xiaohongshu's deliberate departure from its former 'laid-back' self. From centralized management to an upgraded AI strategy, from deepening its domestic presence to accelerating international expansion, Xiaohongshu is sending a clear message to the world: we are ready to accelerate.

In an era where AI is reshaping everything, the 'slow company' label may once have signified composure, but today it looks more like a luxury. Xiaohongshu has clearly recognized this and chosen to respond with a bold, sweeping transformation. Whether this transformation ultimately succeeds, only time will tell — but one thing is certain: a faster, more aggressive Xiaohongshu is on its way.