Z.ai Launches Free ZCode to Battle Cursor, Copilot

Beijing-based AI lab Z.ai has officially launched ZCode, a free desktop coding tool built around its GLM-5.2 large language model. Available on macOS, Windows, and Linux, it supports third-party models via bring-your-own-key and offers bonus usage quotas for subscribers. The launch puts Z.ai in direct competition with Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and Google's Antigravity in the fast-growing AI coding market. The company positions ZCode as an Agentic Development Environment, signaling its most aggressive move yet into enterprise software.