An AI-powered home companion robot makes its debut at the 2025 Appliance & Electronics World Expo (AWE2025) held in Shanghai on March 22, 2025, attracting a visitor to engage in an immersive interactive experience. Photo: VCG

"Good morning, Doubao. Please brief me on what happened domestically and internationally yesterday." This has become a daily ritual for Wu Yuan, an office worker in Shanghai, who issues this command to her artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant developed by ByteDance every morning. For her, AI has seamlessly integrated into her daily routine, evolving into an indispensable part of her life.

Wu is not alone. A growing number of young people in China have been sharing their experiences of "spending a day with AI": letting AI tailor daily meal plans based on their physical condition, leveraging AI to boost work efficiency by prioritizing tasks, and turning to AI to seek solutions for their troubles... For Generation Z, AI has become a trusted, on-call "efficiency partner and companion."

Flourishing AI services 

According to the Blue Book on China's AI Industry Investment in 2024, released in July 2025, the development of China's AI industry is demonstrating several major trends. These include AI moving toward the era of general intelligence, with cost reduction and the open-source development of large models emerging, as well as the rise of multi-modal large models, which help improve the capabilities of AI agents and innovate scenarios, financial media 36Kr reported.

In terms of the number of investment cases, sub-sectors such as AI plus healthcare, intelligent driving, AI infrastructure, humanoid robots, large AI models, AI chips and AI plus industry have been relatively active in investment, with the total number of cases accounting for nearly 80 percent, said the Blue Book.

In the daily life sphere, Chinese online life service provider Meituan launched its first AI Agent App in September, which facilitates local life services such as food delivery ordering, restaurant recommendations and table reservations, Jiemian News reported. In the sports field, Keep, a sports technology company, rolled out its first general-purpose AI coach named Kaka in March this year, designed to create customized training plans and programs based on the sports needs of users, 36Kr reported.

AI has also begun to lend its support to the field of sleep science, serving as a "sleep companion" to help individuals struggling with insomnia. The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Zhejiang University School of Medicine collaborated with Ant Group to develop a sleep AI agent, which integrates one-stop services such as appointment registration, AI pre-consultation assessments and sleep diary logging, chinanews.com reported. 

The agent can also accurately analyze the causes of insomnia via chat interactions, the report said.

Within six months of its launch, this agent has already served over two million users, handling as many as three million inquiries and expanding its services to 342 cities across the country, per the report.

Beyond AI tools with specific functions, platforms like DeepSeek and Yuanbao have also evolved into capable "life secretaries."

For instance, some members of younger generations use AI as a stylist to create satisfying outfits, and others even rely on AI for home soft decoration design. A netizen shared a post on Xiaohongshu about using ChatGPT to assist with soft decoration matching, and many netizens in the comment section shared their own experiences of using AI for home interior design. 

Wu told the Global Times on Wednesday that nearly half of the home appliances in her house are now equipped with smart capabilities, including the TV, air conditioner and audio system. "We owe this to the advancement of AI industry technology."


Within bounds

Seeing AI as a valuable helper that handles daily trivial tasks, Wu told the Global Times on Wednesday that AI allows her to allocate more time to focus on matters of greater importance. 

As she prepared for and ate her breakfast while listening to AI brief her on domestic and international updates, Wu noted that she has more time to absorb new information and reflect. She added that sometimes she even discusses her views on certain social hot topics with AI. 

In the workplace, AI also serves as a "digital colleague" to boost efficiency. Caroline Gao, a Beijing-based white-collar worker, told the Global Times on Tuesday that she has assigned tedious and time-consuming tasks, such as spreadsheet creation, data organization and report reading to AI. 

Initially, Gao had her doubts. However, when repetitive and cumbersome tasks occupied a significant amount of her time and energy each day, or when she needed to quickly identify the key points of materials within a limited timeframe, she decided to embrace this "digital colleague." 

Leveraging its robust information organization and search functionalities, AI can extract the key points from materials in a matter of minutes — a feat that surpasses what is humanly possible in the workplace, Gao said. 

"AI assists me in completing preliminary preparation work and improving efficiency, allowing me to have more time to tackle the core aspects of my tasks," she added.

With the widening use of AI, concerns over its excessive use harming individuals' abilities - resulting in cognitive decline, decreased creativity and skill degradation, among others - have deepened. 

Gao limits AI's involvement in her work to handling repetitive tasks, as she believes that critical thinking is a unique human trait and the defining factor that distinguishes humans from AI. 

"I will never let AI encroach on my professional role or take over my work responsibilities. If I did that, it would be a sign of disrespect both to myself and others," Gao said.

Everyone should be clear about the outcomes they aim for, and let AI help maximize their efficiency, rather than being blindly led by AI, she said. "When 'creation' becomes accessible, judgment becomes a new scarce resource — a uniquely human trait that distinguishes us from AI."

If AI is likened to an echo, we are the valley, Gao said.