Chinese Companies Could Start Making Money from AI Agents Next Year, UBS Says
- tech360.tv
- Sep 6
- 2 min read
Chinese companies could begin monetising artificial intelligence agents as early as next year, according to UBS. AI agents are software systems that use AI to autonomously plan and perform complex tasks for users.
Sundeep Gantori, an equity strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management CIO, stated on Thursday, "2026 is the year of agent monetisation in China." He added that as advanced models like DeepSeek's R2 become more sophisticated, "we expect to see more monetisation".
AI agents are widely considered the next evolutionary stage of generative AI. Major technology organisations like Google and OpenAI have been actively competing in this emerging space.
On Wednesday, German translation start-up DeepL launched an AI agent designed to complete "repetitive, time-intensive tasks across a wide variety of functions." The US market for AI agents currently generates an estimated USD 15 billion to USD 20 billion in annual revenue.
Mr. Gantori noted this is largely because businesses in the US are accustomed to acquiring and utilising advanced software, and the AI models in use there are highly sophisticated. Applications in the US market include coding, wealth management, and various forms of automation.
In China, businesses are less accustomed to paying monthly subscriptions for enterprise software. AI agents have historically focused on consumer applications, from shopping to entertainment.
Mr. Gantori explained that there is currently "not enough monetisation today in China because the models are not there". He suggested that this situation could change next year as the country's large language models grow more sophisticated.
Chinese technology giants like Tencent Holdings, Alibaba Group Holding, and ByteDance are developing AI "agentic frameworks", which are essential tools for creating AI agents. On Tuesday, Tencent open-sourced its new Youtu-Agent framework.
ByteDance open-sourced its agent framework in July, and Alibaba followed suit in March. While US AI agent frameworks remain the most popular, Chinese counterparts are gaining traction.
ByteDance's Coze Studio and Alibaba's Qwen-Agent have each garnered more than 10,000 stars, a measure of popularity, on GitHub. Mr. Gantori also highlighted that the rise of AI has driven a new wave of wealth creation, nearly doubling the Nasdaq's market capitalisation in two years since ChatGPT's launch.
The AI adoption rate in the US stands at 9% and is expected to reach 10% soon. Mr. Gantori predicted, "Very soon we will see double-digit penetration rates both in the US and China."
UBS projects that companies worldwide will invest USD 375 billion in long-term AI projects in 2025. China's contribution is expected to be close to 15%, "thanks to the success of DeepSeek and also the aggressive spending from the leading companies," Mr. Gantori said.
Chinese companies are expected to monetise AI agents by 2026, according to UBS.
AI agents are software systems that autonomously perform complex tasks, considered the next stage of generative AI.
The US market for AI agents currently generates USD 15 billion to USD 20 billion annually.
Source: SCMP
