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Researcher

Shunyu Yao

Shunyu Yao portrait

Chief AI Scientist at Tencent

Yao's PhD work helped turn language models from answer generators into agents that reason, use tools, and revise their plans. He created ReAct and Tree of Thoughts, carried those ideas into OpenAI's Operator and Deep Research, and later joined Tencent as Chief AI Scientist.

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Background

Current role
Chief AI Scientist 2025-present
Previously
2024-2025
About this data

Work and education history is primarily focused on AI-relevant roles and may not be comprehensive.

Last editorial review: August 8, 2026

Citation Trend

2 snapshots
Citation history from Aug 25, '25 to Jun 15, '2634,99525,34615,697Aug 25, '25Jun 15, '26
34,995citations as of Jun 15, '26+19,298 since Aug 25, '25
For today’s citation count and citations per paper, visit Google Scholar.