At WAIC, people are more eager to know how to make money with AI than to watch robots fight.

In late July, the weather in Shanghai was sweltering. On July 27, the second day of the opening ceremony and the day for ordinary audiences to visit, the organizers of WAIC (World Artificial Intelligence Conference) placed a lot of ice along the entrance route. The air - conditioning in the venue was turned on to the maximum, and it was so cold in some areas that people shivered.

However, it still couldn't cool down the enthusiasm of the audiences and exhibitors. The exhibition area of the conference exceeded 70,000 square meters for the first time, with more than 800 enterprises participating, making it the largest - scale event in history. The tickets were quickly sold out. Audiences who failed to buy tickets were seeking them everywhere. On the second - hand platforms, the single - day tickets originally priced at 168 yuan were speculated to 488 - 1500 yuan, and the three - day pass originally priced at 498 yuan was sold at 2000 - 3000 yuan. The roads leading to the exhibition venues, the Expo Exhibition Center and the Expo Center, were severely congested. A two - kilometer drive was estimated to take more than 20 minutes, and finally people had to abandon their cars and enter on foot.

Few industrial exhibitions have been so popular. Everyone wants to catch up with this wave of the AI trend. "It's still a bit too popular among the whole population," sighed Huang Xiaoyun. She works in algorithm - related fields at a large company. At the beginning of this year, DeepSeek and Unitree Robotics came into the public view. She wanted to start a second business during this trend and came to WAIC to find inspiration.

Huang Xiaoyun's first AI marketing venture failed because she couldn't find a suitable application scenario, and the business model didn't work. After strolling around the WAIC venue, her biggest impression was that both hardware and software manufacturers were integrating their technologies with application scenarios more closely. AI is no longer just a story but is playing a role in all industries.

This is also the most obvious change in this year's WAIC. The humanoid robots that stood still at the entrance as mascots last year have started to enter specific scenarios, such as sorting on the assembly line, doing laundry at home, and picking up goods in the supermarket... They are getting closer to daily life. Large - model manufacturers are no longer simply competing on parameters and rankings but are telling new stories about "large models + applications". Some are making AI toys, and some are developing intelligent cockpits, all looking for their own niches.

This year, AI has put aside abstract technical concepts and started to become useful.

Robots in the spotlight, evolving from "able to move" to "able to work"

In this year's WAIC, the busiest exhibition hall is the newly opened H3. The entire floor has gathered almost all the most - watched embodied intelligence companies at present. The number of participating embodied intelligence companies has soared from 18 last year to 80.

Here, the exhibition area of Zhipu Robotics is the largest, covering 300 square meters. According to the official quotation, this exhibition area is worth at least 770,000 yuan. The Yuanzheng A2 gave bilingual explanations to the audience and even danced a cheerleading dance with a bouquet in hand. The Lingxi X2 was cute at the entrance, and its big - eyed head attracted many children to watch and take photos. The Jingling G1 played curling, and many audiences steadily took cola from its hands.

The exhibition area of Unitree Technology attracted the most onlookers. They brought a robot boxing match to the exhibition area. The on - site audience surrounded the area in layers, and late - comers could only watch the live - stream on the mobile phones of the front - row audience. "Unitree still has its own popularity," said an audience while squeezing through the crowd.

● The picture shows Unitree robots boxing. Photo by Huang Yiting.

Beyond entertainment performances, humanoid robots are starting to play a role in industrial, commercial, household, medical and other application scenarios.

The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center presented a complete industrial - scenario task chain in the exhibition area: Under the unified command of the general embodied intelligence platform "Huisi Kaiwu", intelligent robots autonomously report progress to each other, communicate about work, simulate fine operations in the electrical control cabinet operation area, complete industrial inspections on the light - bulb quality inspection line, perform packaging operations in the item packaging area, and shuttle between the three scenarios to complete transportation tasks.

Galaxy Universal, which completed a 1.1 - billion - yuan financing just a month ago, brought a supermarket shelf to the exhibition area. Audiences could select snacks on the shelf through an iPad, and the Galaxy Universal robot Galbot would complete the item - picking and delivery operations. According to Galaxy Universal, this application scenario has received orders from 100 stores and is planned to be put into use nationwide by the end of the year.

The Independent Variable Robotics did housework at the booth: picked up the garbage on the ground and threw it into the trash can, and put the stacked clothes on the sofa into the laundry basket one by one. The movements were slow but rarely made mistakes. The robotic arm of FeiXi Technology acted as a traditional Chinese medicine doctor on - site, massaged the audience's shoulders and necks, and even carved on eggshells. The robots of Qinglang Intelligence became bartenders and also filled popcorn into cups...

Among the many "big black iron blocks", the newly - launched Fourier GRx series' third - generation product, the GR - 3 humanoid robot, looked delicate. Its appearance is like Baymax in "WALL - E", with a milky - white "skin" that feels soft. It attracted a lot of attention just sitting quietly on the sofa. Fourier said that the GR - 3 is a Care - bot focusing on interactive companionship, a "people - centered and warm" humanoid robot, which will be officially launched in Beijing on August 6.

● The picture shows the GR - 3 sitting on the sofa. Photo by Huang Yiting.

Humanoid robots are fun and good - looking, but many scenarios are still a long way from actual use. The Jingling G1 of Zhipu Robotics could only demonstrate "taking a bottle of cola and putting it in the audience's hand" on - site and couldn't take items from the audience. The cognitive rehabilitation training module of Fourier's interactive module designed for the health - care scenario misrecognized a cube as an apple after moving the items, indicating a cognitive failure. The booth staff explained that this module is still in the experimental stage.

Buyers are also quite cautious. A staff member at a humanoid robot company's booth revealed that many companies came to see the robots, but hardly anyone placed an order on the spot. Buyers need to test the products in specific scenarios before really considering a purchase.

Compared with showing off skills in the venue, the real competition in the robot industry is outside. Unitree released its new - generation humanoid robot R1, with a starting price of only 39,900 yuan, a price cut of more than 30% compared with similar products last year. The price cut reflects cost control and mass - production capabilities. Currently, mainstream robot companies in the industry are also competing in mass - production capabilities.

At the performance press conference in April this year, Zhou Jian, the founder, chairman of the board, and CEO of Ubtech, said, "Ubtech's goal this year is to produce about 1,000 humanoid robots, all of which will enter the real scenarios of customers to collect more data." Both Zhipu and Unitree have set their mass - production targets at over a thousand units this year.

Previously, Zhipu Robotics and Unitree Technology won the bid for the procurement project of humanoid biped robot OEM services of China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd. from 2025 to 2027, with a total budget of 124.05 million yuan (including tax). Ubtech's self - developed industrial humanoid robot also won the bid for the robot equipment procurement project of Miyi (Shanghai) Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., with a project value of 90.5115 million yuan.

These buyers are all manufacturing giants that are sensitive to costs and prioritize efficiency. This means that robots are starting to enter real scenarios and generate economic value, changing from "luxury items" for exhibition to "consumer goods" that meet needs.

Model manufacturers abandon parameter competition and focus on application scenarios

The base models are still attracting attention, but they are much lower - key compared with robots. Huang Xiaoyun said after visiting that she felt something was missing.

The missing part is that this year's model manufacturers are no longer focusing on parameter size and ranking scores but are presenting various specific application scenarios. It doesn't seem as lofty, and ordinary audiences can try it out. Chatbots, text - to - image and video generation, AI Agents, etc., are almost standard for each model manufacturer. This consensus brings the manufacturers together, and there is little difference between products. The most recognizable DeepSeek did not attend.

Among the "Six AI Unicorns", Zero One didn't come, and ByteDance's Qianchuan Intelligence, which participated last year, also didn't show up. This unicorn that once claimed to focus on AI healthcare has been in a slump after the departure of its co - founder and several senior executives.

DarkSide made its first exhibition appearance in a 32 - square - meter area. Unlike other manufacturers that filled their areas with displays, it only set up two service desks. One encouraged audiences to post and check - in, and the other was for discussing cooperation with enterprises interested in the newly - launched K2 model. The former was the main task. A staff member at DarkSide's booth said they hoped to interact more with C - end users through this opportunity.

Zhipu also wants to make more efforts in the C - end market. Before this, it had firmly established itself with multiple B - end and G - end orders. Zhipu has newly developed a multi - modal AI companion product called "Dongdong Animal Circle", which allows users to create their own characters, have video chats with them, and the characters can even initiate conversations on their own and order milk tea for users through Agents. An employee of the product team told Mirror Image Studio that the launch of this product is like an internal startup, integrating multiple Zhipu models, and it is expected to start a public beta next month.

After signing multiple B - end cooperation agreements, the exhibition area of Jieyue Xingchen is much larger than last year. A Geely Galaxy car and a futuristic intelligent cockpit are placed diagonally in the area. This is the intelligent cockpit Agent OS (preview version) jointly developed by Jieyue Xingchen, Qianli Technology, and Geely Automobile Group. In the middle of the area are various AI hardware and mobile phones equipped with Jieyue Xingchen models. CEO Jiang Daxin revealed that based on the commercialization progress and growth trend, Jieyue Xingchen plans to set its annual revenue target at 1 billion yuan.

● The picture shows the interior of the intelligent cockpit Agent OS (preview version). Photo by Huang Yiting.

MiniMax's exhibition area has moved from a corner last year to a central position and has also become much larger. According to "Intelligent Emergence" report, as one of the faces of Shanghai's AI enterprises, MiniMax was designated as a "designated exhibitor" by the Shanghai government early this year and got the booth for free. MiniMax used the extra area to display model - application cooperation cases, covering multiple directions such as AI smart glasses, AI toys, intelligent cockpits, and AI cameras.

Not only are large - model startups eager to make their models profitable, but large companies are also developing hardware and software in addition to models, deeply integrating their business advantages and needs, with broader application prospects.

Alibaba exhibited the Quark AI glasses. The new product is closely integrated into the Alibaba ecosystem, with Tongyi Qianwen's large - model and Quark's latest AI capabilities. It also supports Gaode Navigation, Taobao's Scan to Search, and has jointly developed a real - time dynamic reminder function for flight and train schedules with Fliggy and Alibaba Business Travel. Integrating Alibaba's resources and capabilities into the AI glasses gives it obvious innate advantages compared with products from some startups.

Tencent's Hunyuan has newly released and open - sourced a 3D world - generation model. With just a sentence or a picture, it can generate an immersive, interactive, and simulatable virtual world. Previously, this task had to be done by a professional modeling team over several weeks, but now it can be generated within minutes, greatly simplifying the 3D scene - building process, and the generated scenes can be edited again.

JD.com is the model manufacturer most closely cooperating with AI toys. The newly - launched embodied intelligence brand JoyInside occupies most of the exhibition area. Its key cooperation partners are not only robot enterprises but also AI toy brands. Popular AI toy brands such as FoloToy, Fuzozo, Tom Cat, and Huohuotu all have the support of JoyInside.

This cooperation is not limited to models. Wang Le, the founder of the AI toy brand FoloToy, told Mirror Image Studio that when cooperating with JD.com on models, JD.com will purchase their products in bulk and sell them in its self - operated flagship store, which also opens up the sales channel.

Overall, this year, model manufacturers have shifted their focus from technology to business, from parameter competition to value verification. After all, with investment stagnant, companies will go bankrupt if they don't actively generate revenue.

The application side replaces the model side, and investment and financing are overwhelming

On the afternoon of July 27, at the WAIC Future Tech round - table dialogue, Cao Xi, the founding partner of Lishi Capital, said, The financing for large models has not cooled down. The feeling of cooling is because there aren't many new large - model teams as the supply, but the supply of other projects has increased.

Last year, the entire AI investment was focused on the computing - power arms race. Large - model companies and big tech firms were burning money to buy graphics cards to improve model performance. However, this year, as the industry is moving deeper, the anchor point for investment reference has also shifted, paying more attention to business indicators such as order - growth rate, gross margin, task efficiency, and ROI.

This is particularly prominent in the AI hardware field, including smart glasses and AI toys.

In the same exhibition hall as embodied intelligence, XREAL and Rokid, two rivals in the smart - glasses field, faced each other across the aisle, with equal popularity, and there were long queues in their product - experience areas.

XREAL mainly exhibited its latest flagship product, the XREAL One Pro, which focuses on immersive and low - latency experiences in scenarios such as gaming and movie - watching. A father brought his child to queue up. His child likes playing games, and he wanted to buy some new equipment for his child. After the trial, the father decided to think about it again. "There is a strong sense of dizziness, and it's wired, requiring a connection to a host."

Rokid brought the audience into practical scenarios - translation and payment. On - site, several foreign young men and women stood behind the ordering counter. The audience put on Rokid Glasses, ordered with the help of the translation function, and then paid through the glasses. They also invited a band to wear the glasses and sing, with the lyrics displayed inside the glasses, eliminating the need for a teleprompter.

Halliday, Liweike Technology, and Shoujing Technology also brought their smart - glasses products. Together with Alibaba's newly - launched AI glasses, a total of six smart - glasses products were exhibited, still a long way from the "Hundred - Glasses War".

In contrast, AI toys seem to have become a consensus. In the WAIC startup exhibition area alone, there are six or seven teams that clearly aim to make AI companion toys, and their products and commercialization are relatively mature. For example, LOOI has achieved monthly sales of over a thousand units overseas. Model manufacturers such as Baidu, Alibaba