Lab
Z.ai, formerly Zhipu AI.
In plain English
A Chinese lab spun out of Tsinghua University, one of China's six AI tigers, and one of the first AI model companies to list on a stock exchange. It makes the GLM models.
Models to know
GLM-5.3 Flash, its current low-cost model for coding, computer use and long-context agents. Many GLM models are open weight, and you can also use them through Z.ai's chat app and its online services.
Who's in charge
Zhang Peng, CEO.
Things to be aware of
In September 2026, developers found Z.ai's coding assistant, ZCode, had been uploading their code to Alibaba Cloud servers without asking. Z.ai apologised, switched it off, said the data had been deleted, and made ZCode's code public so people could check it. It shows the difference between hosted and self-run: if you use Z.ai's own apps and services, your data goes to its servers, but if you download a GLM model and run it on your own air-gapped system, cut off from the internet, nothing leaves your building. Anthropic has also claimed that Z.ai trained one of its GLM models on answers from Claude and ChatGPT.
Read more
SCMP on Z.ai's unauthorised uploads · Tom's Hardware on the ZCode uploads