With temperatures hitting 32°C (feeling like 90°F) and crowds surging, the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai has ignited a tech fervor across the city this July.

Opening day took the excitement to near-breaking levels. Geoffrey Hinton—dubbed the "Godfather of Deep Learning," Turing Award laureate, and 2024 Nobel Prize winner in Physics—made his debut appearance in China. Alongside him gathered over a dozen Nobel and Turing laureates, marking the event with what many called the "strongest lineup in WAIC history."

Tickets sold out weeks in advance. What originally cost ¥168 for a single-day pass resold for as high as ¥2,000 on secondary platforms, while three-day passes skyrocketed to several times their face value.

Not wanting to miss a single insight for procurement professionals, the PSS Team secured tickets early. From foundational models to AI agents, infrastructure to real-world applications—we walked the expo halls armed with curiosity and key questions:

How is AI transforming industries?
What value can it unlock for procurement?
Which solutions deserve a place in our organizations—or even reshape our workflows?

Dubbed the "Spring Festival Gala of the AI World," this year’s event unfolded across four exhibition halls for the first time, spanning over 70,000 square meters—WAIC’s largest footprint ever.

A staggering 800+ global exhibitors showcased more than 3,000 cutting-edge innovations, including:

  ·  40+ large-scale AI models

  ·  50+ AI-powered devices

  ·  60+ intelligent robots

  ·  100+ world-premier technologies

The halls formed a seamless AI value chain:

  ·  H1 Core Technologies Hall: Focused on foundational models and algorithms

  ·  H2 Industry Applications Hall: Highlighted AI integration across sectors

  ·  H3 Intelligent Devices Hall: Featured end-user AI products

  ·  H4 Ecosystem Hub: Explored investment and collaboration networks

(Together, they mapped AI’s journey from lab to market)

Global tech leaders converged in force, featuring:

  ·  China's elite: Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com, Lenovo, NetEase, ZTE, and China’s big-three telecom carriers (China Telecom/Mobile/Unicom)

  ·  International powerhouses: Tesla, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Seagate, Google, Amazon Web Services

All showcased their latest AI breakthroughs—demonstrating AI’s future at scale.

Huawei dominated with the event’s largest exhibition space, unveiling the industry’s first physical showcase of its Ascend 384 SuperNode computing cluster—the most powerful AI computing system to date. Simultaneously, the company demonstrated its comprehensive Ascend AI ecosystem, highlighting 11 implemented industry solutions across sectors including manufacturing, healthcare, and energy.

Humanoid robots and AI agents emerged as WAIC 2025's biggest showstoppers. Tesla's Optimus bot drew packed crowds the moment it appeared, while Unitree Robotics' robot boxing demonstration triggered such intense audience congestion that temporary crowd control barriers had to be erected.

Established giants and rising stars—from iFlytek, SenseTime and Zhipu AI to MiniMax, StepFun, and Moonshot AI—all showcased their multimodal models and intelligent agent applications. Crucially, many have already moved beyond demonstrations into real-world implementation, with active deployments in:

  ·  Enterprise workflow automation

  ·  AI-powered content generation

  ·  Procurement risk management

  ·  Supply chain optimization 

Bringing Home Real Value: The AI Efficiency Toolkit Transforming Enterprises

At WAIC 2025, we discovered genuinely plug-and-play AI solutions—no longer just benchmark contests or technical theatrics. These tools target real pain points for professionals and deliver measurable efficiency gains in authentic business settings.

Frankly, one day wasn't enough to cover everything. Here’s a snapshot of the most actionable innovations we’re bringing back:

01. From AI Assistants to Sales Turnarounds: The Quiet Efficiency Revolution

At the DingTalk booth during WAIC, we witnessed a real-world example of enterprise efficiency in action: Belle Group's "Bailian AI" project.

Leveraging DingTalk's core AI capabilities and audio-video technology, Belle Group built a custom AI solution designed to:

  ·  Sharpen Product Expertise: Deepen staff understanding of the entire product line.

  ·  Master Pitching Skills: Enhance practical training for product demonstration .

  ·  Drive Smarter Decisions: Enable intelligent iteration from sales data analysis directly to in-store actions.

Bailian AI empowered sales associates to achieve a dramatic performance turnaround, significantly boosting brand-wide sales growth.

DingTalk's Smart Assistant takes automation even further. It enables users to:

• Generate weekly reports with a single click

• Automatically answer business process inquiries

• Intelligently retrieve contracts on demand

This represents an evolution from simply "AI helping you write" to the more intuitive "AI understanding what you write."

DingTalk's travel management features empower employees to handle the entire trip lifecycle – anytime, anywhere:

  ·  Apply for trips

  ·  Book travel & accommodation

  ·  Seek & manage approvals

  ·  Process expense reimbursements

By learning corporate travel policies, it intelligently filters options to recommend compliant and cost-optimal resources, effectively slashing travel expenses while maintaining operational flexibility.

Tencent is charting a course focused on "Immersive Efficiency Boost".

The combination of Tencent Meeting + WeCom (Enterprise WeChat) forms a complete AI-powered office collaboration ecosystem:

  ·  Automated Summaries & Highlighting: Meeting minutes are automatically summarized and key points are marked.

  ·  Smart Meeting Recaps: Even meeting recordings can generate content summaries with a single click.

  ·  Seamless Cross-Team Collaboration: Different teams, even across regions, can collaborate synchronously on the same project.

  ·  Automated Task Distribution: WeCom intelligently distributes tasks, drastically reducing cross-organizational communication overhead.

Think of it this way: While traditional collaboration meant "organizing notes yourself after the meeting," modern collaboration is "AI generating summaries + next steps + reminder emails during the meeting." This powerful shift essentially helps teams reclaim every precious minute.

02. Meet Your Digital Procurement Specialist: Inspur Cloud’s AI Employee Debuts

Amidst packed crowds at Inspur’s exhibition zone, we encountered a game-changer: the AI Procurement Specialist—a digital steward revolutionizing procurement workflows.

This AI employee masters end-to-end procurement operations, delivering:

  ·  Comprehensive guidance on regulations, processes, and product catalogs

  ·  Automated compliance risk alerts with mitigation strategies

  ·  Single-click price benchmarking for optimal supplier negotiations

  ·  Centralized vendor intelligence through unified digital profiles

  ·  Visual dashboards transforming fragmented data into actionable insights

For many procurement teams, this AI assistant can partially take over labor-intensive tasks like manual data consolidation, price benchmarking, and contract drafting—freeing human talent to focus on strategic innovation.

03. WPS AI Slides: The Lifesaver Every Presentation-Weary Professional Needed

Crowds gathered at WPS’s demo zone for good reason: its one-click presentation generation and automated reporting tools target universal workplace frustrations. Finally—an antidote to endless slidecraft.

WPS AI transforms presentation creation through intuitive keyword or outline inputs, generating structurally sound, visually polished slides within minutes. Beyond drafting text frameworks, it intelligently pairs content with data visualizations, color schemes, and imagery—all fully customizable.

Users refine outputs via conversational AI edits, adjusting templates, slides, or layouts in real-time. This is generative collaboration redefined.

For on-the-go productivity, WPS introduces its breakthrough "Call Your Document" feature. When reviewing files manually isn’t feasible—say, during commutes or workouts—simply call the document. The AI Voice Assistant answers instantly, providing spoken answers to your queries.

Imagine this:  Instead of burning midnight oil formatting procurement reports, you input core themes and data points. WPS AI instantly drafts presentation-ready slides—liberating teams to focus on strategic insights, not design drudgery.

04. AI-Powered Risk Control, SRM & Supply Chain: IntSig’s "Qixin Insight"

While AI in office tools tackles efficiency challenges, IntSig’s "Qixin Insight" represents a critical leap in enterprise-grade AI for risk management.

On-site, we witnessed Qixin Insight dynamically generated a "Global Supply Chain Risk Map": it delivers real-time data on corporate credit fluctuations, operational anomalies, and ESG sentiment within specified regions. The system provides continuous risk scoring and early warnings, updating every 60 seconds while boosting alert efficiency by over 300% versus traditional manual verification.

For procurement teams:

  ·  Proactive supplier monitoring replaces reliance on hearsay regarding defaults.

  ·  Early detection of operational disruptions in upstream partners.

  ·  Unprecedented visibility into multi-tier supply networks.

Amid volatile geopolitics and evolving regulations, Qixin Insight transforms supply chain risk management from reactive damage control to AI-powered predictive prevention. This marks an incremental step for procurement systems but a quantum leap in risk mitigation capability.

05. Multimodal Mastery: iFlytek, Tongyi & Kling's Content Alchemy

"Today's AI doesn't just write and speak—it sees, hears, illustrates, and performs."

At iFlytek, Tongyi, and Kling AI booths, we witnessed full-spectrum multimodal capabilities (text, images, audio, video, code, 3D modeling) redefining creative boundaries.

Kling’s “AI Canvas” emerged as a major attraction for both consumer and enterprise audiences. This convergence hub combines:
visual content creation, AI-powered creative assistance, and real-time multi-user collaboration in a unified workspace.

To date, Kling AI serves over 20,000 corporate clients globally—dominating sectors including:

  ·  Advertising & marketing

  ·  Film & animation production

  ·  Game development

Now recognized as the definitive benchmark for industrializing foundation models.

At the forefront of enterprise AI, Tongyi Qianwen showcases how to fuse search, Q&A, and data analytics into an integrated "enterprise knowledge brain." With a single command, users can activate both internal knowledge bases and external databases to execute complex analytical tasks.

Meanwhile, iFlytek leverages its Smart Office Notebook X5, iFlytek Hearing, and Spark AI model to bridge speech recognition, meeting transcription, content generation, and AI-powered knowledge search. This ecosystem seamlessly integrates the entire workflow—from speaking and writing to hearing and understanding.

For team collaboration, such "AI-assisted Co-creation" unlocks transformative efficiencies:

  ·  Generating contracts, PPT drafts, and emails in seconds;

  ·  Creating market research reports, supplier evaluations, and case recommendations intelligently;

  ·  Enhancing cross-team communication with clarity and precision.

If earlier AI functioned merely as a tool, today’s AI evolves into a true creative executive—strategizing, innovating, and executing alongside human teams.

06. Large Models Meet Infrastructure Revolution: Huawei, JD Cloud & Baidu AI Cloud Lead the Charge

Computing power is the non-negotiable foundation of large models.

Huawei showcased the world’s largest Ascend 384 Supercluster deployment, with architectural optimizations specifically engineered to meet the demanding low-latency, high-bandwidth, and high-reliability requirements of model training and inference. The Ascend ecosystem now supports over 2,700 industry partners, having developed 6,000+ vertical solutions spanning mission-critical sectors including finance, energy, and manufacturing.

At WAIC, JD Cloud’s smart hardware showcase debuted its embedded AI brand JoyInside, partnering with dozens of leading robotics companies across education, companion services, and industrial applications. The launch featured warehouse-assist robots tailored for retail and manufacturing sectors, alongside AI customer service assistants designed for e-commerce platforms.

Baidu Smart Cloud unveiled its next-gen digital human NOVA, featuring true-to-life human replication with real-time interaction capabilities. The platform enables live commerce streaming, digital employees, and AI customer service deployments. During the live demo, NOVA powered influencer Luo Yonghao’s digital avatar livestream, generating RMB 55 million GMV in a single session.

For Procurement: Moving AI from Trade Show Floors to Operational Cores

Leaving the exhibition halls while compiling notes and interviews, one question persistently surfaces:

“Where do we actually start with these AI technologies, platforms, and services?”

For procurement teams, AI must transcend being ‘an IT department’s speculative roadmap’ and transform into a ‘hands-on efficiency lever for immediate experimentation’. Especially amid today’s global volatility, resource constraints, and accelerated business rhythms, procurement cannot afford to be without enhanced insight, predictive power, and cross-functional coordination.

Three Practical Implementation Strategies Post-WAIC:

01. Start Internally: Deploy AI for Immediate Time Savings

These low-barrier AI automations require no organizational restructuring or sensitive data sharing—only internal training and template setup. The payoff? Immediate time recovery for high-value work.

02. Integrate Risk Intelligence: Proactively Secure Your Supply Chain

For procurement leaders, this shifts the narrative from "costs saved" to demonstrable "risk prevention"—letting you showcase compliance value and early-warning capabilities at board meetings.

03. Break Silos with Cross-Functional AI: Collaborate to Innovate

Leverage co-creation platforms such as Kling’s AI Whiteboard or iFlytek’s Smart Canvas to develop joint solutions between Procurement ↔ R&D/Marketing.

The procurement professional of tomorrow transcends price negotiation expertise—emerging as the essential interface bridging business operations with supply chains, and creative vision with tangible delivery. Mastering AI tools positions you as the most critical pivot in this connected ecosystem.

Beyond the Exhibition Hall

Our team clocked 20,000 steps across WAIC’s sprawling halls—each exhibit sparking the same urgent question: “Can we take this AI back to empower our procurement teams? Amid the AI frenzy, how do we actually integrate it into our enterprise?”

The answer isn’t one-size-fits-all. But we can take this fist collective step forward.

On November 21 this year, Procurement Success Summit (PSS) will host its first-ever AI Procurement Innovation Day, focusing on AI in procurement. We will bring together procurement leaders, technology experts, and AI solution providers from industries such as manufacturing, retail, pharmaceuticals, and technology to explore how to turn AI trends into practical applications.

If you're interested, we welcome you to join us: https://impact.pssworld.net/