From September 9 to 12, the 2026 Inclusion·Bund Conference, themed "Co-creating the New AI Economy," was held at the Huangpu Expo Park in Shanghai, with more than 300 exhibitors gathered in a 15,000-square-meter themed technology exhibition area. From "tap-to-verify" entry that activates an AI assistant to robots working in pharmacies, factories, and laundries, the event showed AI moving off screens and into real-world scenarios.
What supports these applications is not just a series of "smart AIs." Foundation models give AI the ability to handle complex tasks; the explosion of agent applications enables it to act on people's behalf; and terminals, payments, and security determine whether it can truly be integrated into business processes. In other words, AI needs a full set of "hands and feet" and "capillaries" to enter the real world.
Embodied intelligence was the most visible section on site, with more than 40 vendors showcased. Robots equipped with a general-purpose brain can complete order reception, drug recognition, sorting, and delivery in 80-centimeter-wide narrow aisles without changing a store's existing layout; the same robot brain can also drive different forms of robots, sorting packages in logistics warehouses and completing loading and unloading in industrial scenarios, presenting a "one brain, multiple machines" path.
When AI begins to invoke services across devices and even place orders and make payments for users, new questions follow: who is acting, what permissions have been granted, and how can problems be traced? The answer on site was to make security a native system capability—verifiable identity, traceable intent, controllable authorization, and full-process records—while spending money still requires user confirmation.
This also brings the organizational model of agents to the forefront: moving from "one app" to collaboration among "a group of agents." For enterprises, the platform presets more than 200 industry skills and digital expert templates, allowing companies to build their own "digital employees" like Lego blocks. StarWar Cloud's direction in the OPC agent collaboration platform and large-model API marketplace is aligned with this—orchestrating multiple models, tools, and agents into reusable capabilities so enterprises do not have to build AI workflows from scratch.
AI is also penetrating SMEs and the grassroots level. Merchant operation agents connect chain headquarters with stores, letting owners directly ask "which store is not selling well"; in hospitals, AI services run through registration, guidance