The era of AI agents is accelerating, and publicly traded companies are actively deploying strategies.

“Future AI agents may have more intelligence than humans, and humans will live in a world with hundreds of millions, even tens of billions of AI agents.” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicted this in an interview program this July. A report from Bank of America also pointed out that AI evolution is on the eve of the third wave—intelligent agent artificial intelligence (Agentic AI) is about to arrive.

In the second half of this year, AI Agents have been all the rage, becoming a hot area that major tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Google, OpenAI, and others are throwing their strength behind. In China’s domestic market, large-model vendors, internet companies, and listed companies are all actively positioning for AI agents.

As more and more companies roll out AI Agent products and ecosystems, industry insiders expect 2025 may become the breakout year for AI Agents. In its research report, Galaxy Securities forecasts that by 2028, the size of China’s AI Agent market will surge to RMB 852 billion, with a CAGR of 72.7%.

Vendors kick off the AI agent race

AIAgent—an artificial intelligence agent, also called an “AI intelligent agent”—is a system driven by a large language model as its “brain,” with the ability to autonomously understand, perceive, plan, remember, and use tools, enabling it to automatically execute and complete complex tasks. Unlike traditional artificial intelligence, AI Agents have the ability to gradually achieve a given goal through independent thinking and tool use.

For a simple example: if a user wants to go out for a meal, the large language model can provide them with information and suggestions about dining places and specific restaurants. But an AI Agent can do more than just offer restaurant-picking advice—it can also search for cuisines and restaurants based on the user’s budget, execute the reservation, add the itinerary to the calendar, and send itinerary reminders.

Since the second half of this year, AI Agents have been highly sought after, and tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic have all announced related progress.

In June, Apple showcased its latest AI achievement Apple Intelligence at its developer conference. In November, Microsoft announced more than 10 commercial AI Agents at the “Microsoft Ignite 2024” conference. Google followed suit, announcing full-scale promotion of commercial AI Agents, rolling out a series of incentive activities and products, and it also specifically released one of the few global markets for commercial AI Agents. OpenAI plans to release a new AI Agent product code-named “Operator” in January 2025.

In China’s domestic market, vendors represented by Zhipu have also put major focus on AI Agents, and a race centered on “AI Agents” is quietly underway.

On October 25, Zhipu released AutoGLM Agent, which can read voice commands to understand user intent and simulate human behavior to automatically complete tasks such as ordering takeout, booking flights, and hotels. On November 29, Zhipu launched an upgraded version of AutoGLM Agent, which supports autonomous execution of long-step tasks of more than 50 steps and can flexibly switch between different apps while carrying out tasks.

Zhipu believes that AI large models are moving from “Chat” to “Act.” In the future, a unified AI intelligent agent will operate various hardware devices to improve the efficiency of human-machine interaction. With increases in computing power, models and terminal-to-cloud collaborative architectures adapted to AI-native devices will gradually emerge. Smart devices such as phones, PCs, cars, glasses, and home devices are quickly coming to market.‌

Besides Zhipu, ByteDance, Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, and other vendors are also rolling out AIAgent, including ByteDance’s Coze Agent platform, Baidu’s Qianfan AgentBuilder agent development tool, and Kunlun Wanwei’s Tiangong skyAgents.

Multiple listed companies roll out AI Agents

While domestic vendors kick off the AI Agent race, many listed companies in the A-share market are also actively positioning for AI Agents.

For example, iFlytek has launched AI assistants for education, healthcare, judicial services, government services, and other fields. Jin Cai Internet’s “Xinzhiyue Tax & Finance Large Model” adopts an open-architecture design, combining the company’s tax and finance products and an open platform to build a tax-and-finance AIAgent intelligent agent.

The AI Agent development and operating platform from Zhongke Jincai provides functions such as Agent creation, multi-base model calling, workflow definition, and more. It can automatically route and schedule the most suitable large model based on industry scenario needs to complete Agent creation. The company states that Zhongke Jincai’s AI Agents achieve multi-intent understanding: they can automatically execute multiple tasks based on user instructions or contextual information. After learning user preferences through understanding, they can provide personalized services and achieve highly human-like end-to-end natural-language interaction.

Xin Guodu Holding’s subsidiary, Shanghai Shiyi’er District, is devoted to developing General Purpose AI Agent technology and conducting research on multimodal AI technologies and products.

Xin Kaipu launched a campus life AI product called “Xiaomei Classmate” in October this year, built on the PanGu large model and the Tongyi Qianwen large model.

On December 9, Zhitong responded that when asked by investors whether it has already deployed AI Agents, the company said it has been continuously promoting product and technical development in the area of AI Agents. For example, the company’s Rubik Avatar is an integrated and innovative product that combines various technologies including AI Agents. Including AI technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision, and based on edge-side intelligent technologies and naked-eye 3D technologies, and based on Qualcomm’s high-compute chip platform, using Zhitong’s Kanzi 3D rendering engine for real-time rendering of 3D graphics and images, etc.

Nangxing shares recently said in its response to investor questions that its subsidiary Youyi Network is based on frontier AI large-model technology and has engaged in deep cooperation with industry-leading enterprises such as Microsoft to provide efficient and intelligent AIGC application products and solutions for industry customers. Xiaolu is an AIGC-based AI assistant that supports intelligent chatting and knowledge-base Q&A.

Cooltech Smart, in its December 17 response to investor questions, said that the target of its Cooltech AI Agents 2.0 version is to become a universal digital intelligence tool and helper, helping traditional enterprises carry out digital-intelligence transformation and upgrade. Currently, the Cooltech AI Agents 2.0 version is under development.

2025** may usher in a commercial explosion of AI Agents**

For AI Agents, industry consensus holds that 2025 will be the breakout year for AI Agents.

A research report from Shanxi Securities points out that Agents are expected to be deployed in batches in 2025, driving up demand for computing power, and further expanding investment demand for AI infrastructure.

Debon Securities also predicts that by 2025, AI Agents may enter a boom period, and the terminal market will achieve a qualitative leap. As the Agent network gradually takes shape, improvements in market penetration will help build a favorable closed-loop business model for the entire AI ecosystem.

“Right now, tech giants such as Apple, Google, and OpenAI have already viewed Agents as one of the key focuses for 2025. 2025 may become the first year when Agents break out, thereby driving AI application deployment.” said Zong Jianshu, an analyst at Yangtze River Securities.

In the view of Tang Fangxin, head of government and enterprise business at Wanxing Technology, AI Agent development is in a transition stage from “experiments” to “applications” and has not yet reached maturity. But as computing power continues to improve and machine learning and natural language processing technologies advance, AI Agents’ capabilities in understanding user intent, providing personalized services, and executing complex tasks are continuously improving. At present, AI Agents have already been applied in multiple fields such as customer service, smart home, and personal assistants, and they are expanding into more industries and scenarios.

Tang Fangxin believes that AI Agents will continue to evolve, gradually moving from the “usable” stage to the “really helpful” stage. They have already landed in some commercial scenarios—for example, the interactive digital human business launched by Wanxing Technology can, to a large extent, solve the scenes of reception and presentation in exhibition halls, smart demonstrations, speech reporting, and corporate guest welcoming. Using AI digital humans to introduce to audiences and consumers the service content for specific scenarios, and using AI to reinvent traditional interaction methods, it empowers and enhances audience experience.

However, Tang Fangxin pointed out that the introduction of AI Agents involves the collection and processing of large amounts of user data. Therefore, safety and privacy issues are crucial and may trigger potential privacy concerns such as data misuse and privacy leakage. In addition, AI Agents must rely on local computing power and large models, which creates high requirements for technical maturity, vendors’ integration and implementation capabilities, and operational and maintenance service capabilities. At present, it is necessary to penetrate from single scenarios into related scenarios, continuously solidify mature paths and solution experience, and at the same time strengthen security and privacy regulation, exploring and embracing it with an open mindset.

“From ‘training’ to ‘inference’—AI intelligent agents will be the necessary path to the general artificial intelligence era,” says a research report from Galaxy Securities. As large models iterate and upgrade rapidly, AI intelligent agents built on large-model technology have entered a stage of rapid development. The rise of AI intelligent agents is reshaping the AI industry chain and bringing new investment opportunities. It is expected that by 2028, the market size of China’s AI agent sector will surge to RMB 852 billion, with a CAGR of 72.7%. The AI intelligent agent industry chain is a diversified, highly coordinated ecosystem, and the future market space is broad.