Fan Ling Invited to Guest on CCTV Live Broadcast: AI Should 'Understand People' Rather than 'Roll Parameters', Humans and AI Should Become Partners | Highlights from Day One of WAIC

Shanghai, July 17, 2026 — The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2026) opened today in Shanghai. President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech. This year's exhibition area has surpassed 100,000 square meters for the first time, gathering over 1,100 global companies. On the same day, Fan Ling, founder and CEO of Tezign Technology, and director of the Design AI Laboratory at Tongji University, was invited to guest on CCTV live broadcast as a representative voice from the industry, sharing insights on the AI industry's implementation and the symbiotic relationship between humans and AI. Tezign Technology also showcased its enterprise-level AI GEA at this year's conference, focusing on the theme of 'Digital Forest' to present the scalable implementation scenarios of AI.

Guesting on CCTV Live Broadcast, Fan Ling Discusses AI Development and Thoughts

On the opening day of WAIC, Fan Ling was invited to guest on CCTV live broadcast, becoming one of the industry representative voices featured on the first day of the conference. He shared core judgments that span academia and industry, from macro trends to the relationship between humans and AI: AI is currently transitioning from a showcased technology to a foundational infrastructure supporting various industries, with the path to popularization shifting from 'being able to chat' to 'being able to do' — from providing information to truly executing tasks for people, enabling everyone to become more versatile with the help of AI. Regarding the pace of industry implementation, he mentioned that 'what truly determines implementation is the enhancement of human capabilities, the reshaping of organizational processes, and the patience required to bridge the gaps.' In terms of longer-term academic concerns, he believes that the intellectual equality of AI makes human judgment, aesthetics, and taste even more precious — precisely because AI can do more and more, 'humanity, aesthetics, and creativity are our true foundation.'

As a professor at Tongji University, doctoral supervisor, and director of the Design AI Laboratory, Fan Ling also stated, 'I conduct AI research in academia and drive innovation in the industry, switching between these two identities. Over the years, I have become increasingly convinced that the design of AI is not about creating smarter machines, but about designing a symbiotic relationship between humans and AI — making AI a partner to humans rather than a replacement. Good technology should benefit more people through sharing. Research has shown me how far AI can go, while entrepreneurship has confirmed whether it can truly be implemented. Turning research into capabilities that can be used in industry, allowing humans and AI to truly become partners — this is what I most want to promote.'

GEA Enters Various Industries, Digital Forest

This year, enterprise-level Agentic AI company Tezign (Booth No. H1-C135) showcased the theme 'Digital Forest' at this conference, presenting real cases from multiple industries such as consumer goods R&D, fast-moving consumer goods growth, technology going global, and user research, focusing on the scalable deployment scenarios of its self-developed enterprise-level AI GEA (Generative Enterprise Agent) in core business scenarios, attracting numerous executives, industry partners, and audiences for in-depth exchanges on-site.

The exhibition booth consists of multiple independent content nodes, each corresponding to a real implementation case in an industry scenario. Metal structures, screen systems, and natural materials create an open distributed space, with the theme of 'Digital Forest' running throughout — AI practices are like independently growing trees, interconnected under the same framework, collectively forming a sustainable operating enterprise intelligent ecosystem. During the three-day exhibition, on-site audiences can directly experience GEA product interaction demonstrations, feeling the actual effects of AI entering core business processes.

GEA currently covers four product lines: insight research, content growth, design creation, and product innovation, all directed towards the same goal: transforming enterprise AI from 'one-time delivery projects' to 'sustained operational capability systems.' To date, Tezign has served over 180 enterprise clients, including over 60 Fortune Global 500 and China 500 companies, with more than 1 million professional users on the platform, deployed and operated in over 50 countries and regions globally, with a monthly average token deployment exceeding 10 billion.

GEA has built a four-layer enterprise-level intelligent agent closed loop from business intent to business outcome (Intent to Outcome), consisting of the Intent layer, Orchestration layer, Agent Skills layer, and Context layer. The Orchestration layer is driven by Tezign's self-developed world's first proprietary Creative Reasoning Model, which can dynamically coordinate over 30 foundational models and call upon over 400 modular skills. Within this framework, the value of the Context Layer is particularly highlighted: it transforms years of accumulated brand data, content assets, and business experience into a single factual source understandable by AI, enabling the agent to operate within the real business context rather than relying on generalized assumptions.

About Tezign Technology

Tezign Technology is a leading enterprise-level Agentic AI company in China, dedicated to building enterprise-level intelligent agent systems based on the Generative Enterprise Agent (GEA) architecture, capable of understanding business contexts, participating in complex decision-making, and continuously driving results, helping enterprises achieve growth, innovation, and productivity enhancement.

Currently, Tezign's GEA has served over 180 enterprise clients, including more than 60 Fortune Global 500 companies, and is used by over 1 million professional knowledge workers in 50 countries worldwide, widely applied in key business scenarios such as product innovation, user research, brand growth, and content operations.

Tezign is a national high-tech enterprise and one of the benchmark enterprises in Shanghai's artificial intelligence industry 'Big Dipper'. It has self-developed the world's first Creative Reasoning Model, accumulating over 180 patents, 50 software copyrights, and multiple algorithm registrations.

About Fan Ling

Dr. Fan Ling, scholar and entrepreneur. PhD from Harvard University, Master's from Princeton University. Professor, doctoral supervisor, and director of the Design AI Laboratory at Tongji University, doctoral supervisor at the Shanghai Autonomous Unmanned Systems Science Center, and chief expert at the National Industrial Design Center. Founded Tezign Technology (Tezign) in 2015.

He is a Global Young Leader and Cultural Leader of the World Economic Forum (WEF), a member of the Aspen Institute's China members and Global Leaders Network, a member of the IEEE Extended Intelligence Committee, a youth council member of the Future Forum, a director of the YouChange Foundation, and a director of the Yunqi Engineering Institute, among others.