2026 Inclusion Bund Conference Closes With Over 50 Technology Debuts, 80-Plus Cooperation Intentions

Held under the theme 'Co-creating AI New Economy,' the conference brought together 670 guests from research, industry and investment to discuss AI's effects on production, consumption, business and social forms. More than 300 companies displayed AI applications in healthcare, payments, finance, retail and daily services. The organizer said the event attracted guests and visitors from more than 50 countries and regions, with more than 78,000 on-site participants, 20 percent of them Gen Z, and 23 million online views of forum livestreams.

Economists at the conference focused on whether AI-driven gains can become real economic growth. Nobel economics laureate Thomas Sargent said AI remains in an unknown 'Kepler stage.' Nobel economics laureate Aghion's research indicated AI could raise annual productivity growth by 1.08 percentage points, but whether that potential turns into sustained growth depends on the competitive environment, education system and employment adaptation. Huang Yiping, dean of Peking University's National School of Development, also asked whether employment, income and demand can keep pace with productivity gains. Liu Yuanchun, president of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, put the question as whether AI investment can ultimately settle into real production capacity.

Companies showed through practice how an AI new economy might serve individuals. AI applications such as Abao and Afu made services that once required professionals more accessible, agents began completing consumption, booking and other tasks for users, and AI payment explored how agents can truly enter transactions. In discussions, the conference formed several points of consensus: AI's economic value is moving from cost reduction and efficiency gains toward creating new demand, supply and business increments; agent commerce is an important path to opening incremental space; and as AI takes on more tasks, trusted infrastructure for identity, authorization, security and responsibility tracing becomes more important. Participants generally held that realizing the dividends of an AI new economy requires balancing efficiency and distributional fairness, and that AI's value must ultimately be measured by 'real growth' and people's sense of gain.

In the 15,000-square-meter theme technology exhibition area, more than 300 companies showed AI moving from 'can generate' to 'can act,' with more than 50 technologies, products and applications making first launches or debuts. Robots began entering pharmacies, factories, laundries and other real work scenarios; agents helped users order coffee, hail rides, seek jobs and obtain medical care; and AI further entered street shops, small and medium-sized enterprises and rural clinics. The conference held several industry matchmaking and venture events. An industry matchmaking meeting attracted 350 companies and facilitated more than 80 cooperation intentions. The conference also added its first embodied intelligence session to connect robot companies with actual industry demand. The concurrent VC Meetup gathered more than 500 investors and over 120 AI startups, bringing a group of early-stage projects into the view of investment institutions and industry players. The conference also set up its first Innovation Species Exhibition, displaying startups, one-person companies and innovation projects; entrepreneurial delegations from Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay visited. The Voyage industry forum produced by Ant International attracted nearly 400 overseas fintech representatives.

Young entrepreneurs and developers were another group receiving attention. Gen Z made up 20 percent of the audience. The Bund Hackathon AI Coding Competition received Guinness World Record certification with 15,577 AI application works, a record for 'most applications developed in an online generative AI hackathon.' The event drew more than 10,000 participants, nearly 70 percent of them under 18, with the youngest aged 6. Many post-95 and post-00 participants also appeared at events such as VC Meetup. Wang Jian, director of Zhejiang Lab and founder of Alibaba Cloud, shared at the conference that young people are the engine of the world and passion is the fuel, and that the challenges of the AI era will ultimately be solved by passionate young people.

Beyond technology, people remained a main line of discussion. The conference and Zhihu launched an 'AI Tech and Humanities Ten Questions' collection, receiving more than 5,000 questions from netizens; the 10 most-followed questions presented were about ordinary people's real concerns in the AI era. It was the fourth consecutive year the conference released the ten questions. The first AI Art Festival explored the boundaries of human creativity through music, images and art exhibitions. Discussions on employment, education, income distribution and human-AI relations ran through multiple forums. A technology talent job fair connected technology with people: 55 companies offered more than 1,500 positions focused on large models, intelligent computing, AI+ applications, embodied intelligence, internet and fintech, and received more than 7,000 resumes, with AI-related positions accounting for over 70 percent. The 'Green Planet' theme pavilion turned the 'AI energy account' into a perceptible exhibition, asking about the green value of every token. The Ant Forest 10th anniversary 'Earth Partners Conference' was held concurrently, with more than 200 global green innovation projects responding to Ant Forest's call to 'respect natural boundaries, continue to think wildly' and joining the Bund Conference's first green technology innovation competition to offer new solutions for nature protection. As the 2026 Bund Conference came to a close, discussion continued on how AI will further enter the economy, industry and daily life.

Editor's Summary

The 2026 Inclusion Bund Conference closed in Shanghai with more than 50 first-time technology debuts and over 80 industrial cooperation intentions, drawing 78,000 on-site attendees and 23 million online viewers. Speakers debated whether AI productivity gains can become real growth, while exhibitions and matchmaking pushed agents, robots and AI services into business settings. The event also spotlighted young developers, human-centered questions about jobs and education, and green computing.