Companies such as OpenAI have promoted the advancement of AI technology, and Chinese companies going overseas have taken advantage of the momentum and started a new wave of exporting AI products and services to the world. This seems to be a "clear way" for domestic software companies to expand into the global market.
Ai Fan will introduce to you XMind, a successful example of Chinese software going global.

1. What is the AI software XMind Copilot?

At the end of 2022, generative AI applications such as ChatGPT emerged rapidly, and XMind immediately realized that this type of technology would have a disruptive impact on the creative industry.
In 2023, XMind launched XMind Copilot, an AI-integrated mind mapping tool, which quickly became popular among users around the world, attracting 5 million users from the United States, Japan and other countries, and became a successful example of Chinese AI products going overseas. It mainly provides users with simple and efficient mind map generation to organize knowledge and broaden their thinking, helping to complete large-scale complex tasks.
Mind mapping is a knowledge framework tool and a typical application of structured thinking. Whether taking notes or brainstorming, efficiency and quality can be greatly improved. In the past, mind maps were mostly drawn by hand or using ordinary software, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive. When faced with complex projects and tasks, you still feel inadequate. With the advent of the AI era, people have begun to use the power of AI to do mind mapping, and XMind Copilot is the result of this attempt.

XMind Copilot has four core functions:
1. One-liner
Users only need to enter a sentence of a topic or central idea in the text box, and XMind Copilot can automatically generate a complete mind map based on this sentence in a few seconds.
2. Inspire Me
It can use AI algorithms to automatically generate relevant branches and new nodes based on the content of the current mind map, helping users expand their ideas and obtain more related ideas and creative inspiration.
3. Ghostwriter
The user inputs a short outline, and Ai will automatically generate a long article based on this text.
4. Outliner
Enter an article, and AI will automatically analyze the structure of the article, extract key points and generate an outline of the article.
These AI functions greatly improve users' mind mapping efficiency and can stimulate more creative thinking. Among them, One-liner's automatic mind map generation function is the most prominent and is the flagship function of XMind Copilot.

2. Friedman’s global vision inspires innovation – the strategic origin of XMind’s overseas journey

The founding team of XMind was inspired and influenced by Thomas Friedman's best-selling book "The World is Flat" in the initial stages of the company. The book explores how globalization and the information technology revolution have "flattened" the world, removing geographical and other barriers. This inspired XMind's entrepreneurial team to determine a strategic goal of going overseas when the company was still in its early stages, hoping to open up the global market through independently developed products.
As a mind mapping software, XMind already has 5 million active users worldwide. Since its inception in 2006, it has been downloaded more than 100 million times and is a software with excellent reputation. It has received a high rating of 4.8 stars in the app store and a total of more than 300,000 reviews. In the month after XMind added AI functionality (i.e., XMind Copilot version), the software's business scale increased significantly. Data shows that in the first month after XMind Copilot was launched, the number of paying users of XMind increased by 30%, and revenue also increased by 40%.

3. Opportunities and challenges for AI software going overseas

1. AI companies need to maintain the value of product innovation while reducing the difficulty of use.
The emergence of AI products undoubtedly brings new experiences and possibilities to users, but there is also a certain learning cost. Most users are relatively unfamiliar with these products. If companies do not provide effective product education, users will not be able to fully utilize the powerful functions and creative potential of AI tools. This makes AI companies face the challenge - how to reduce the difficulty of using the product for users while ensuring that the innovative value of the product itself is not diluted or disappeared? To solve this problem, companies need to start from multiple dimensions, such as designing versions or usage models for different user groups, strengthening product guidance and explanations, adopting flexible pricing strategies, and constantly optimizing user experience. Only through comprehensive product, operation, and market innovation can AI companies develop the market and truly benefit users.

2. Chinese AI companies cannot rely solely on technology to go global, but must also establish a globally recognized brand.
China has a large number of outstanding engineers, which provides strong technical support for AI companies and is sufficient to realize the globalization of products. However, in the process of exploring international markets for these enterprises, brand building and marketing are still weak links. To achieve true globalization, Chinese AI companies must not only focus on technological innovation, but also focus on brand strategy. The brand here is not simply advertising, but to establish a cognitive impression in the minds of international users, build mental connections, and strive to occupy a dominant market position on a global scale. Chinese AI companies must transcend the technical perspective, carry out global layout from the market and brand levels, and create brand images and perceptions that are attractive and influential to global users in order to take the lead on the international stage.