AI super-apps are remaking China’s internet

To have a coffee delivered to an office in Shanghai, simply ask one of China’s artificial intelligence super-apps to choose a brew on your behalf, press “confirm” and the beverage will be on its way. Delegating such important decisions brings risks, of course. When your correspondent asked one popular AI app to deliver a “special coffee”, he received a rose-petal-vinegar-flavoured one.

Nevertheless, the pace with which such services are being adopted in China is remarkable. Already more than 600 million of its people are thought to have used some form of agentic app. The country is speeding towards a future in which AI chooses, purchases and delivers many of the goods and services people consume, upending its digital economy in the process.