Three Days at WAIC: 20 Frontline Practitioners Told Me the Same Truth

Embodied AI industry consultant and host of "Yang Kuan AI Insights." Author of five books, including "Understanding Humanoid Robots in One Book" and "Understanding ChatGPT in One Book." Formerly head of strategy at Horizon Robotics and AgiBot.

Booth photos, CEO soundbites, funding announcements, leadership tours. I guess as you scroll you stop being able to tell which company is which—they're all dancing robots, inspection robot dogs, and an LED screen that says "Embodied AI Leads the Future."

A considerable portion of the in-depth WAIC articles you see on WeChat public accounts were written by my friends. Not friends working as reporters at media outlets. Friends doing PR at exhibiting companies. Their busiest task these two weeks hasn't been studying technology—it's been writing copy for their bosses: how to package a demo shown last year as a "major breakthrough," how to arrange the most face-saving product lineup along the leadership tour route, and how to translate "we're still looking for scenarios" into "we've achieved large-scale deployment across multiple industries."

Many friends said after attending WAIC that they wanted to write industry observation reports. Then they told me the same thing: just wait and read what Kuan Ge writes.

From July 17 to 19, I spent three days at the Expo Center. Besides walking the halls and watching demos, I chatted with no fewer than 20 frontline industry friends—those working on robot bodies, models, dexterous hands, and data, investors, people who left big companies to start their own ventures, and those who, after delivering a PowerPoint in a suit at a booth, pulled me aside and said, "Let's go out and get some air."