AI agents are rewriting how we do business today

Editor's Note: On Sept 10, the main forum of the 2026 Inclusion Conference on the Bund brought together industry leaders from different parts of the agentic AI ecosystem to discuss "When agents become transaction participants". The discussion focused on how AI agents could change commercial entry points, transactions and trust as they begin to participate in economic activities. Below are reflections from four speakers, as reported by Li Wei of China Daily.

The agent economy runs on intent

By Han Xinyi

The next scarce resource on the internet may not be attention, but intent. As AI agents become more capable, "traffic" may shift from time spent to what users actually want.

A personal assistant may not simply answer questions. It might understand an individual's preferences, act proactively and use different forms of interaction to help complete a task.

For businesses, this could change marketing as well. Instead of simply buying traffic and improving conversion rates, merchants may have to respond more precisely to users' individual intentions.

In essence, marketing could become more like a service.

The changes on the supply side could be just as significant. One emerging opportunity is to "pay for intelligence." Many people have valuable experience, but their services are limited because that experience cannot easily be generalized or replicated.

AI could expand such supply, turning individual knowledge and expertise into services that can be delivered at much greater scale.

The bigger change may come when agents begin to interact with one another.

If individuals and businesses each have multiple agents acting on their behalf, the agent economy could become a vast network in which agents search, communicate, transact and coordinate with other agents. The scale of such an economy is difficult to imagine today, but the commercial opportunities could be enormous.

Yet none of this will work without trust and security. Users will need to know not only who they are dealing with, but also what an agent is authorized and capable of doing. New mechanisms such as "Know Your Agent", agent capability assessment, fraud prevention, risk control and traceable, auditable transactions will become increasingly important.

When something goes wrong, it should be possible to determine whether the problem came from the user's authorization, the agent's misunderstanding, the transmission of information or the merchant's execution.

The transition may take time.

Just as online payments took years to become widely accepted, people will need time to develop trust not simply in the technology, but in agents making decisions, executing tasks and making payments on their behalf.

Han Xinyi (also known as Cyril Han) is the chief executive officer of Ant Group. 
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.