In the keynote speech at the 2026 Inclusion·Bund Conference, Ma Huateng, CEO of Ant Group, clearly stated that the "ChatGPT moment" of the intelligent agent business has fully arrived. The core shift in this judgment lies in the fact that intelligent agents have officially entered a new stage, capable of deeply engaging in real transactions, becoming the core commercial entry point connecting user needs with real supply.
Looking back at the development of human-computer interaction, the ChatGPT at the end of 2022 allowed people around the world to truly experience the leap in natural language interaction. Today, the landmark change in the intelligent agent business is that users begin to fully entrust their real-life needs to intelligent agents. This fundamental change in user behavior is reshaping the starting point of commercial logic entirely.
Traditional business models often rely on standardized products and fixed pages, reaching users through advertising, exposure, and traffic operations. However, in the era of intelligent agent business, the starting point of commerce shifts to the core intent of users. The future focus of competition for merchants will no longer be simply about traffic and display space, but whether they can be accurately understood by users' intelligent agents and become the most trustworthy, matching, and capable service providers. Data provided by Zhu Lin, General Manager of AI Payment at Ant Group, shows that with the explosion of the AI industry and the popularization of smart terminals, the proportion of more natural new interaction payments may exceed 50% within the next five years, and diverse smart device payments are also expected to see a tenfold growth.
However, for intelligent agent business to achieve large-scale development, the industry must work together to overcome three fundamental challenges: how services can be accurately understood and called by intelligent agents, whether intelligent agents can genuinely assist users in completing transactions, and who will authorize, manage risks, and take responsibility after the transaction occurs. During the process, questions such as who the Agent represents, where the authorization boundaries lie, how to manage fund security and fraud risks, and how to define responsibilities when problems arise, are all key issues that need clear definitions.
Regarding this, Ma Huateng pointed out that the value of AI payment goes far beyond merely paying on behalf of users or simple automatic deductions. Instead, it serves as a "trusted commitment engine" in the intelligent agent business. By ensuring that the entire transaction process is authorized, manageable, controllable, and traceable, it allows users to confidently entrust and enables merchants to boldly connect, helping service providers jointly build a sustainable ecosystem.
To accelerate this ecological prosperity, it was announced at the event that Alipay has established a 10 million yuan development fund for life intelligent agent developers, with the highest annual single reward reaching 1 million yuan. As intelligent agents truly begin to help users handle payments and transactions, the entire industry's commercial ecosystem will also witness a comprehensive burst of growth.
