- China Daily
BEIJING: Chinese tech companies are banking on digital employees powered by artificial intelligence (AI) agents to enhance productivity, liberate people from repetitive work and bolster digital transformation in an era of rapid development of AI technology.
As AI is increasingly leveraged to identify people’s needs and solve problems, digital workforces are becoming the core carriers for reconstructing the organisational forms of enterprises, and driving revolutionary changes in productivity, industry experts said.
An AI agent refers to a system or programme that is capable of autonomously performing tasks on behalf of a user or another system by designing its workflow and utilising available tools.
AI agents are more advanced than chatbots because they not only provide suggestions or answers, but autonomously execute complex actions across a multitude of industries, thus delivering tangible results.
The capabilities of large language models are evolving and advancing at unprecedented speed, said Ruan Yu, vice-president of Baidu, emphasising that the accelerated evolution of models is driving AI to shift from a human-machine collaboration model to an AI agent form.
An increasing number of new types of workers will emerge in people’s daily work, and AI agents will participate in all aspects of enterprise operations in the form of “digital employees”, Ruan said.
The company has launched the first batch of AI-powered digital employees, covering core business functions such as marketing managers, car salespersons, promotion specialists, product managers, course advisers and recruitment specialists.
It will create more digital employees for various positions, while expanding the application scenarios of such employees across various fields, including education, automobiles, finance and fast-moving consumer goods.
According to a report released by Beijing-based market research firm EO Intelligence, the market scale of AI agent marketing and sales in China stood at 44.2 billion yuan in 2024, and this is expected to reach more than one trillion yuan in the next five years.
AI agents have immense growth potential in the field of application and development, said Zhu Guangxiang, head of Baidu’s Miaoda product.
Although they will replace some repetitive and mechanical job positions, new employment demand will be created and people can shift their focus to more creative work, Zhu said.
He added that AI agents have different areas of expertise and complete various tasks by combining different sectors and professional fields.
As the new carriers of content, information and services, AI agents are approaching a tipping point of explosive growth.
Global consultancy Gartner said AI agents will augment or automate 50% of business decisions by 2027. This integration will enhance decision flows by handling complex analysis and data retrieval.
It added that AI agents can plan and automate tasks, make informed decisions and interact with their surroundings.
Tech service leaders can help clients revolutionise their operations by integrating AI agents into offerings that are configured with components designed for their primary purpose.
“We’re entering a new era where AI agents will take on real work at scale,” said Wang Guanchun, chairman and chief executive officer of Chinese intelligent automation platform Laiye.
There exist huge opportunities to bolster the application of AI agents in a wide range of sectors like manufacturing, Wang said. — China Daily/ANN
