Xiaohongshu Announces Major Organizational Upgrade: Ramping Up AI Investment, Conan Appointed as President

Xiaohongshu Announces Organizational Upgrade, Conan Appointed as President

On April 30, Xiaohongshu officially released a company-wide internal memo announcing the launch of a major new round of organizational upgrades. The core moves in this restructuring include: full integration of its three major business units — community, e-commerce, and commercialization — along with the company's technology infrastructure, and a strategic push into AI with the establishment of a top-level AI department called Dots and an Enterprise Intelligence division.

Regarding personnel appointments, Conan will serve as President, overseeing the integration of the three business units and the technology infrastructure, taking full responsibility for the company's core business operations and reporting directly to CEO Xingshi. This appointment marks a pivotal step in Xiaohongshu's organizational architecture, centralizing decision-making authority in a single core executive to enhance overall operational efficiency and cross-business synergy.

AI Becomes Strategic Priority: Dual-Track Deployment with Dots and Enterprise Intelligence

The most striking signal in this organizational upgrade is undoubtedly Xiaohongshu's significant ramp-up in AI. The internal memo explicitly stated that the company will increase AI investment along two dimensions simultaneously: "product technology" and "organization."

Specifically, Xiaohongshu has established two key departments:

• Dots: Positioned as a top-level AI department, this designation grants AI the highest strategic status within Xiaohongshu's organizational hierarchy. Judging by the name, "Dots" likely symbolizes connecting AI capabilities like nodes across every business scenario within the company, forming a networked intelligent empowerment system.
• Enterprise Intelligence Division: This department is focused on leveraging AI technology to improve the company's internal operational efficiency and drive intelligent transformation at the organizational level.

This dual-track AI deployment — externally focused on products, internally focused on efficiency — demonstrates that Xiaohongshu's AI strategic thinking has become highly systematic, rather than simply chasing trends.

The Deeper Logic Behind the Three-Business Integration

Xiaohongshu's integration of its community, e-commerce, and commercialization businesses is essentially addressing organizational coordination issues accumulated during years of rapid growth.

As a platform that originated with "grass-planting" (product recommendation) content, Xiaohongshu's community ecosystem is its core competitive moat. However, as its e-commerce business rapidly expanded and commercialization efforts continued to advance, coordination costs among the three business units have steadily climbed. Balancing content authenticity with commercial interests, and navigating trade-offs between user experience and conversion efficiency, all require higher-level unified decision-making.

Conan's role as President overseeing all three businesses is precisely aimed at breaking down departmental silos and establishing a more efficient decision-making chain. The deep integration of AI technology is expected to serve as the technological connective tissue linking community content, e-commerce transactions, and commercial monetization — from intelligent recommendations and content understanding to marketing optimization, AI can penetrate virtually every core business function at Xiaohongshu.

Industry Context: Major Tech Companies Collectively Betting on AI Transformation

Xiaohongshu's organizational upgrade is not an isolated event. Since 2024, major Chinese internet companies have been undertaking AI-centered organizational restructuring: ByteDance has continued to invest heavily in its Doubao large language model, Baidu has integrated AI across all business lines, and Alibaba has been continuously adjusting its organizational architecture to adapt to the competitive pace of the AI era.

For Xiaohongshu, its unique community content ecosystem and massive UGC data provide a natural advantage for training and applying AI models. Whether it's intelligent generation and understanding of image-text content, refined personalized recommendation operations, or intelligent customer service and marketing automation in e-commerce scenarios, AI has enormous application potential.

Outlook: Can AI Become Xiaohongshu's 'Second Growth Curve'?

This organizational upgrade sends a clear signal: Xiaohongshu is positioning AI as the core driver of future growth. The decisiveness of establishing a top-level AI department is unprecedented in Xiaohongshu's history.

However, the challenges should not be overlooked. How to deeply apply AI while maintaining the community's authentic tone, how to attract top technical talent amid fierce AI talent competition, and how to translate AI investment into actual business growth are all critical questions that Conan and the management team need to answer.

It is foreseeable that 2025 will be a pivotal year for the implementation of Xiaohongshu's AI strategy. This content community platform with over 300 million monthly active users is attempting to redefine its future with AI.