At the opening of the 2026 World AI Conference, Stepfun chairman (and Qianli Tech chairman) Yin Qi took the stage to deliver a talk titled "When Agents Enter the Physical World." His message: the next big wave in AI will come from combining agent models with next-generation hardware. Intelligence is leaving the digital screen and stepping into the real world, which will create three structural shifts: new systems, new carriers, and new networks.
Yin Qi argued that by 2026, model capabilities have already crossed a critical threshold. AI has advanced from executing simple second-long tasks to working independently for dozens of hours. Programming languages are becoming the key yardstick for AI progress after natural language, and the industry as a whole is now standing at the foot of the AGI mountain. With each tech iteration, agents are becoming the smallest unit of productivity. Soon, engineers, designers, researchers — each will have their own dedicated agents, giving a single person the production capacity of a whole team.
Yin Qi said the agent wave will bring three fundamental industrial changes:
New systems: Agent capabilities depend on both model performance and an Agentic OS — which connects models to data, tools, and devices. This operating system defines what agents can actually do and will become the core infrastructure of the agent era.
New carriers: Terminal design philosophy will shift from "human-centered" to "human-machine symbiosis." Computers, phones, cars, and robots will become multi-scenario carriers for the same agent, allowing it to exist continuously across devices, move freely, and collaborate on tasks.
New networks: An A2A (agent-to-agent) network will build a new value network where humans and agents coexist. Agents will have independent identity and credit systems, enabling them to collaborate and transact autonomously — forming the foundation of an agent economy.