According to the latest analysis, the biggest disruption is not a physical object, but a digital service:
Artificial intelligence assistants integrated into everyday life, which are already used by more than 600 million people in China to plan trips, manage purchases, summarise documents, optimise journeys and make day-to-day decisions.
These assistants — Doubao, Tongyi Qianwen, DeepSeek, and others — have become the new dominant interface between consumers and the market.
They are not standalone ‘apps’ or tools: they are the brains behind the entire consumer experience, integrated into e-commerce, social media, payments and product recommendations. Why is this the ‘breakthrough’ of the year in China?
- Unprecedented widespread adoption: more than half of consumers use it every day
- Transforming retail: discovery is pure entertainment
- It acts as a personal shopping consultant, a hyper-personalised advisor
- It is the driving force behind a new technological ecosystem, fuelling the boom in virtual humans, i.e., AI avatars
The “breakthrough” in Chinese consumption in 2026 is not a specific flagship product, but a new type of consumer infrastructure: generative AI assistants, which centralise, personalise and automate decision-making for Chinese consumers.
