How to Survive and Thrive in the AI Era? ChinaAMC CEO Shares her thoughts

BEIJING, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Asset managers have to shift from individuals, experience-driven investment to platform-based, and industrialized framework to survive and thrive in the AI era, China Asset Management (ChinaAMC) CEO Li Yimei said.

She made the remarks on May 29 at the 2nd Global Asset Management Forum organized by China Fund News in Shenzhen. The event brought together senior executives from top-tier global financial institutions to engage in high-level dialogues exploring China's strategic opportunities in the age of artificial intelligence.

Li's keynote speech was titled "New Paradigm, New Intelligence, New Responsibility: How to Excel in the AI Era."

Li Yimei emphasized that the wave of artificial intelligence sweeping through this year is completely unstoppable. Moving rapidly from "tokens" to "AI Agents," and from "computing power" to "AI-Native Clouds," professionals are waking up every day to a reality where their cognitive boundaries are being reshaped by AI. The spectacle closely mirrors the dawn of the internet wave in the 1990s. Decades later, the internet has thoroughly restructured daily lives, working models, and business ecosystems.

In her view, what the industry is currently experiencing is not a simple, incremental technology upgrade, but rather a "new paradigm revolution". The only viable choice for any forward-looking enterprise is to fully embrace the future.

How should an asset manager position itself amid the paradigm revolution? Li asserted that the answer lies in allowing AI to "grow naturally out of existing business lines"—thereby converting high-frequency industry "buzzwords" into roaring, real-world productivity, with a purpose of making investment research more professional, client services warmer, risk management more robust, and operations more efficient.

Investment Research: Building the 'Skeleton of a Platform' for Industrialized Infrastructure

On the investment research front, ChinaAMC has engineered its research systems to organically grow into the "skeleton of a unified platform", which means an industrialized and highly intelligent investment research infrastructure.

Capitalizing on frontier technologies such as Large Language Models (LLMs) and machine learning, ChinaAMC has achieved a structural leap in investment decision-making: evolving from manual filtering to intelligent data-mining, and from isolated individual decisions to seamless human-machine collaboration. Concurrently, the overarching research paradigm is shifting away from being purely experience-driven toward a scientific, platform-based, and industrialized framework.

Relying on this highly sophisticated, evolving research infrastructure, ChinaAMC continuously refines a diversified suite of strategies—including quantitative investment, intelligent regular investment plans, and sector rotation models—effectively providing its investment businesses with "intelligent wings."

Furthermore, ChinaAMC closely aligns its product development with China's overarching national strategic objectives. The firm has aggressively deployed dedicated product pipelines across sectors that support national agendas, such as AI, new energy, biomedicine, and high-end manufacturing. While providing vital support to the real economy, this strategy captures long-term structural value for investors, cultivating a virtuous cycle where "AI empowers investment research, investment research drives performance value, and performance value sustains the broader ecosystem."

Highlighting a prime case study, Li introduced the "ChinaAMC Wings" (Feiyi) Fixed-Income Integrated Intelligent Platform. This proprietary platform has not only exponentially enhanced the efficiency of portfolio analysis and trade execution while optimizing asset allocation logic, but also effectively stored high-quality investment research outputs, which made them all traceable. This ensures that research processes are fully replicable and trade executions highly predictable.

Client Services: Becoming a Professional and Empathetic 'Digital Confidant'

On the client-facing front, ChinaAMC leverages AI to scale its digital service capabilities, translating long-term client companionship into practical, daily actions. The firm's vision is to serve as a professional, deeply empathetic, and trusted "Digital Confidant" for hundreds of millions of retail investors on their wealth management journeys.

As part of this initiative, ChinaAMC's wealth management subsidiary, ChinaAMC Wealth Management, launched the "Red Rocket" platform. This digital solution utilizes advanced technology to dismantle professional financial barriers and significantly lower investment thresholds for ordinary users.

Furthermore, by deeply integrating LLMs, highly personalized recommendation algorithms, and affective computing (emotional AI) technologies, ChinaAMC has meticulously crafted an interactive "Digital Partner" on the Alipay platform—known as "ChinaAMC Smart Calf AI Agent." This agent is uniquely capable of active listening, authentic empathy, and continuous client companionship.

Beyond these applications, AI has fundamentally breathed life into the firm's entire customer service ecosystem. ChinaAMC has successfully consolidated and constructed an omni-channel, marketing-and-service unified workbench alongside an integrated wealth management platform. This dashboard establishes a unified, crystalline view of each client, ensuring that every single interaction is imbued with human warmth, retains contextual memory, and delivers highly targeted insights, thereby enhancing investors' sense of financial fulfillment.

Operations: Erecting an AI-Powered Fortress for Comprehensive Risk Management

On the operational and infrastructure front, ChinaAMC utilizes AI to build fortified defensive walls and deep operational moats to mitigate enterprise risk.

Throughout its comprehensive embrace of intelligent transformation, ChinaAMC took the industry lead in establishing a proactive, dynamic threat-alert and defensive architecture. To date, ChinaAMC has finalized the comprehensive classification and grading of its firm-wide data assets, implementing a highly differentiated, multi-layered data protection framework.

Simultaneously, the company has integrated advanced AI to construct ChinaAMC's proprietary "Security Brain." Powered by deep learning algorithms, this system drives a comprehensive, multi-dimensional upgrade toward "intelligent, proactive defense" and "trustworthy governance."

Maintaining Curiosity, Deep Focus, and Independent Decision-Making

Li pointed out that while humanity marvels at the omnipotence of technology, they must recognize a fundamental truth: AI can iterate almost everything, but AI is not omnipotent.

Taking the investment research domain as an example, she explained that AI can flawlessly and efficiently execute standardized tasks—such as summarizing research reports, transcribing and organizing meeting minutes, cleaning raw data, and building foundational financial models, a human analyst's sharp professional judgment can only be tempered, refined, and solidified during long, late-night hours spent dissecting a 300-page IPO prospectus, conducting extensive field research across industrial supply chains, and repeatedly dismantling and rebuilding financial models from scratch. This hard-earned judgment, forged through rigorous real-world trials, remains the core anchor for navigating highly complex, volatile capital markets.

Thus, ChinaAMC draws a crystal-clear line separating "tasks that can be replaced by AI" from "processes that require absolute human execution." While foundational, repetitive tasks are systematically delegated to AI, macro trend forecasting, ultimate value choices, and deep engagement with investee companies must be conducted by human researchers.

Reflecting on the Fiduciary Essence of Asset Management, Li Concluded:

"The asset management industry is built upon a sacred foundation: 'Accepting clients' trust and managing wealth on their behalf.' In this noble pursuit, three core dimensions remain irreplaceable by machines: no matter how powerful AI becomes, it can never substitute for human Trust; no matter how advanced an algorithm is, it can never replace fiduciary Responsibility; and no matter how intelligent a model proves to be, it can never replicate human warmth and empathetic care. We are determined to stand as the steadfast night watch of our industry, never forgetting our initial purpose."

Concluding her address, Li offered three strategic recommendations for individuals navigating the AI era:

• Preserve Intellectual Curiosity: Do not fear AI; instead, keep the courage to actively learn from it. Curiosity is the single most valuable human trait in the age of AI.
• Maintain Deep Focus and Independent Thinking: In an era characterized by heightened information overload, breadth of knowledge has become a cheap commodity. True scarcity in the future will belong to those who can ask precise questions, think deeply, and preserve independent judgment outside the comfort of market consensus.
• Never Surrender Ultimate Decision-Making Authority: Humans are the masters of AI, not its dependents. We must be the ones to define the operational boundaries of technology, rather than allowing ourselves to be defined by technology.

About ChinaAMC

Founded in April 1998, China Asset Management Co., Ltd. (ChinaAMC) has grown to be one of the largest asset managers in China, with total AUM reaching RMB3 trillion (US$443.1 billion) as of the end of March, 2026. It positioned itself as a full-service and versatile asset management platform that operates across asset classes, industries and regions. ChinaAMC has embraced the technology as a core engine driving the company's next phase of development.

Disclaimer

Investment involves risk, including possible loss of principal. The information contained herein is for reference only and reflects prevailing market conditions and our judgment as of the release date, which are subject to change without further notice.

SOURCE ChinaAMC