Lee Kum Kee, together with Feishu, is not only passing down 138 years of traditional craftsmanship to employees but also to AI digital staff.
The collaboration between the two companies goes beyond simply integrating an AI model into the enterprise. The core lies in enabling the rich, 138-year accumulated craftsmanship and experience to be inherited not only by people but also empowered to digital employees.
Over the past two years, when many enterprises discussed AI, their first thought was often, "Should we integrate a model?" However, once truly embedding AI into operations, they realize that the model is merely the starting point. How employees find information, how processes flow, which experiences remain solely in veteran employees’ minds, and which tasks are hindered by tools, permissions, or departmental silos—these details ultimately determine how effectively AI can perform.
Lee Kum Kee's story begins precisely with these details.
Starting from an oyster sauce workshop in Zhuhai’s Nanshui township and growing into a global condiments enterprise, Lee Kum Kee has spanned 138 years and six generations, bringing its iconic bottle of oyster sauce to the world. Behind this bottle lies the true legacy: deep expertise and judgment in flavor, ingredients, production techniques, and market understanding, passed down through generations.
In the past, these hard-to-quantify "craftsmanship" skills were transmitted person-to-person. Today, facing a global workforce of 6,000 colleagues plus a new cohort of "digital employees," Lee Kum Kee has initiated a new form of knowledge inheritance.
From Finance and Sales to the Kitchen: AI Gets to Work
For 138 years, Lee Kum Kee's expertise has been passed from person to person. Now, this knowledge is also being taught to a group of "AI new hires."
The first changes began with seemingly minor issues.
Previously, when employees encountered financial compliance questions, they had to ask in group chats and @ relevant colleagues. Although the queries weren’t complex, delays often occurred due to time zone differences, business trips, or messages getting lost in busy chat streams.
Now, there’s an additional "new colleague" available 24/7 in the chat—the Financial AI Assistant. Aggregating years of financial knowledge from Lee Kum Kee, employees simply ask a question and receive an answer along with supporting references within one minute.
Where people once had to think, "Who should I ask?," many questions no longer require waiting for specific individuals to come online. Knowledge previously scattered across people and documents is now instantly accessible and ready to use.
Asking the Financial AI Assistant about risks in offline promotional activities
FoH (Foodservice on-premise) sales represent a key business scenario for Lee Kum Kee, where accumulated experience is particularly difficult to standardize and document.
Sales representatives visit restaurants daily, communicating with chefs and procurement officers. Each restaurant differs in situation and needs, making it impossible to fully rely on SOPs to guide when and how to follow up.
To address this, Lee Kum Kee developed the FoH Sales Visit AI Assistant on Feishu, assisting sales staff throughout pre-visit, during-visit, and post-visit tasks.
In the past, valuable insights remained trapped in face-to-face conversations. Sales reps might learn about a chef’s preferences or a store’s challenges, but such details often disappeared after the visit ended.
Now, every step—from preparation and communication to follow-up—is systematically recorded. Judgments once dependent on individual experience are being systematically documented and transformed into reusable knowledge assets.
Using the FoH Sales Visit AI Assistant for pre-visit preparation
If the previous examples focus on internal collaboration, then Lee Kum Kee’s self-developed FunCook app brings AI directly to consumers.
The seemingly simple question—"What should I eat today?"—actually troubles many people. FunCook, as Lee Kum Kee’s cooking platform, offers recipes, inspiration sharing, and community interaction. Now, it features a new AI Recommender: users can upload photos of available ingredients or describe their taste preferences, and the AI will recommend suitable dishes.
Through FunCook, Lee Kum Kee’s decades of accumulated expertise moves beyond the product itself and actively participates in consumers’ daily meal decisions.
The AI Recommender on FunCook
"AI New Hires" Do More Than Just Answer Questions
Financial queries can now be resolved anytime; before sales visits, AI has already prepared materials; afterward, documentation, summarization, and follow-ups proceed automatically.
These intangible "new employees" have deeply integrated into daily workflows. AI is no longer just a Q&A tool—it’s becoming a collaborative colleague capable of acting within specific operational steps.
This continuous action capability stems from the evolution of the underlying platform into the form required for the AI era.
Employees already conduct daily work within Feishu: messaging, document writing, meeting discussions, process advancement—information continuously accumulates. For AI agents, all of this becomes essential context for task execution.
Within authorized limits, agents can access needed knowledge and data, understand task progress, and drive the next actions. After answering a question, they can further organize documents, send reminders, or even continue advancing the task.
In the past, messages, knowledge, and processes were connected through individual employees. Now, agents are embedded into this network, collaborating with humans to complete work.
For 138 years, Lee Kum Kee’s expertise has been passed down through mentorship and senior guiding junior.
Now, the newly arrived "digital employees" also take their seat at the table of inheritance.
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