"Key figure" Dou Xin resigns as Chairman, marketing expert Tang Ying takes over: What are the odds of success for DouShen Education's new AI story?

This publication (chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Yu Jin, Beijing

In the process of transitioning from a tutoring and training company to an AI education company, Doushen Education has also begun personnel adjustments.

On March 23, Doushen Education announced that, due to adjustments to its work arrangements, Dou Xin applied to resign as a non-independent director and as chairman of the board of the company’s sixth session of the board of directors. He will also no longer serve as the chairman of the strategic committee of the company’s sixth session of the board of directors. Meanwhile, Tang Ying, who comes from the second-largest shareholder, Zhejiang Wenlian Internet, and has extensive marketing experience, was selected as the new chairman. At the same time, the company’s legal representative is planned to be changed from Dou Xin to Zhao Boqi, who is a director of the company and also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Over the past two years, whether through cooperation with Zhipu AI or the launch of AI education products, Doushen Education has shown its determination to pursue AI. How to tell this new AI story in a more compelling way may be something the new management is better at, but how much upside the new story can bring still needs to be validated over time.

Dou Xin Steps Down as Chairman

Doushen Education’s “core figure,” Dou Xin, has stepped down as chairman.

According to official information, Dou Xin is the company’s actual controller. From 2009 to 2014, Dou Xin co-founded Beijing Gaosi Education Group and served as a director and vice president. From 2014 to 2015, he served as a director and senior vice president of Beijing Giant Education Group.

In 2015, Dou Xin founded Zhongwen Weilai Education Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Zhongwen Weilai”); in 2018, Zhongwen Weilai was acquired by listed company Lisidance. In June 2019, Dou Xin became president of Lisidance. The following July, Lisidance changed its name to Doushen Education. Starting from October 2021, Dou Xin has served as chairman of the board of Doushen Education.

According to the latest announcement, after resigning, Dou Xin will continue to serve as Doushen Education’s chief teaching, education and research expert, and chief AI strategy expert, focusing more of his energy on innovation and upgrades of the company’s teaching, education and research, as well as AI products.

Tang Ying, who is expected to succeed as chairman, also has a similarly rich resume. In particular, from June 2016 to February 2026, he worked at Zhejiang Wenlian Internet, and from November 2020 to June 2025, he served as chairman and chief executive officer. Starting from December 2025, he also serves as an independent non-executive director of Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology Co., Ltd. After being elected as chairman of Doushen Education, Tang Ying also serves as chairman of the strategic committee.

Tang Ying and Doushen Education have also had prior intersections. Public information shows that Tang Ying previously led Zhejiang Wenlian Internet’s restructuring investment into Doushen Education. In 2023, Doushen Education announced bankruptcy and restructuring. During the company’s restructuring, Zhejiang Wenlian Internet contributed RMB 133 million to acquire 88.53 million shares.

At present, Zhejiang Wenlian Internet is Doushen Education’s second-largest shareholder. The two parties also have business dealings, mainly involving Doushen Education purchasing information promotion services from Zhejiang Wenlian Internet and its subsidiaries.

According to related announcements released together on March 23, Doushen Education and its subsidiaries are expected to engage in related-party transactions with Zhejiang Wenlian Internet and its subsidiaries with a total amount not exceeding RMB 500 million in 2026. In the past 12 months, the related-party transactions already generated between the two parties totaled RMB 454 million.

Zhejiang Wenlian Internet is a digital culture technology group with digital marketing at its core, with deep deployment of AI technologies and in-depth layout of innovations in mixed-ownership systems and mechanisms. When the “GEO concept” became popular in January this year, it was once viewed by the capital market as a leading stock of the GEO concept.

In addition, Doushen Education’s legal representative is planned to be changed from Mr. Dou Xin to Zhao Boqi, a director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. Regarding this personnel adjustment and business changes, a reporter from The Huaxia Times interviewed Doushen Education’s representatives. As of the time of publication, the other party had not responded.

Zhang Xiaorong, president of the Deep Technology Research Institute, believes that Doushen Education’s personnel adjustment is intended to advance its AI hardware strategy. In an interview with a reporter from The Huaxia Times, he said, “Dou Xin stepping down is to focus on products and AI content, while Tang Ying, who has a marketing background, taking over is leveraging his digital marketing experience to accelerate the commercialization of hardware. At the same time, Zhao Boqi will strengthen the content foundation, with clear division of responsibilities, aiming to enhance the market penetration of the hardware business.”

Boosting AI Education Products

In early 2024, Doushen Education, which had suffered losses for years, completed bankruptcy restructuring, achieved “delisting risk removal” and “star removal,” and its business and financial structures returned to a healthy state. Also in that year, Doushen Education actively embraced AI.

The best-known externally is that Doushen Education is a “Zhipu AI concept stock.” In October 2024, benefiting from Zhipu AI, one of the “AI six little dragons,” Doushen Education saw consecutive trading days with its stock hitting the daily limit up. On October 25 of that year, Doushen Education disclosed that it had signed a “Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement” with Zhipu AI and Hainan Hezun to establish a joint venture focused on the technical R&D and sales of AI education products. The joint venture’s subscribed registered capital is RMB 500 million, of which Doushen Education holds 70%, Zhipu AI holds 25%, and Hezun Network Technology holds 5%.

Then on October 30, 2024, Doushen Education moved quickly and launched its self-developed end-to-end integrated education product, “Dou Shen AI.”

In 2025, Doushen Education’s product lineup in AI education products began to diversify. In July 2025, Doushen Education launched a new AI education product called “Super Energy Training Grounds,” focusing on practice guided by real-world effectiveness. This product, together with its AI double-teacher product, had accumulated sales exceeding RMB 30 million over 6 days. The 2025 Q3 financial report shows that the cumulative revenue of Doushen Education’s AI Super Energy Training Grounds and AI double-teacher products reached about RMB 50 million in Q3.

In fact, it is not only Doushen Education—education companies such as New Oriental and Gaotu also launched AI education products, and market competition has been intense as well.

When Dou Xin was interviewed by a reporter from The Huaxia Times in July 2025, he said that what Doushen Education is doing is higher-difficulty AI products. “There’s both hardware and a combination of learning and practicing. There’s also a ‘hybrid’ of real humans and AI. The entire system is the most complex. ‘Only by being able to face competition head-on and outcompete the current real-human livestream classes can it become the next generation of AI education products.’”

Apart from upgrading AI-plus-education products, Doushen Education also cooperated with robotics company Yingzhi Technology to launch a study-partner robot suitable for education scenarios. It is reported that on December 22, 2025, Doushen Education released and opened pre-orders for the study-partner robot. The first batch of units began pre-sale livestreams on December 22 and sold out the same day. The first round of official sales began in the first quarter this year.

In December 2025, senior executives of Doushen Education said at an investor relations event that the study-partner robot uses homework as an entry point, stepping into children’s daily homework activities. It simulates children solving problems to predict the difficulties, time consumption, and commonly made mistakes during homework, replacing parents to complete end-to-end follow-up work such as correcting errors, dictation, memorization, checking and verifying calculations, and analysis. By obtaining detailed learning data, combined with the company’s self-developed “Jiuxiao Platform” content production system, it can generate personalized curricula, guidance plans, text readers, and AI problem-solving programs, enabling tailored instruction.

“This also marks that the company is moving from being driven by educational resource-based models toward being driven by personalized data and AI technology. The company will become a truly technology-based education company,” the above-mentioned senior executives of Doushen Education also said.

Regarding the development prospects of the study-partner robot, Zhang Xiaorong believes that this type of product hits the urgent demand of parents to “free themselves from tutoring.” It is an effective path for AI in education scenarios to evolve from a tool into a companion. However, he also pointed out that, so far, no successful case has emerged in this field, and there is a lack of large-model technical support sufficient to influence the market. Therefore, whether this path can truly be realized remains to be observed. As for whether it can open up sales for the company and shake off the stereotypical impression of “fancy learning machines,” it still needs further validation from the market.

Editor: Huang Xingli; Chief Editor: Han Feng

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