Laiye at WEF Summer Davos: Shaping the Agentic Economy with a Decade of AI Agent Innovation
The World Economic Forum’s 16th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as "Summer Davos," kicked off this Tuesday in Tianjin. Centered on the theme "Entrepreneurship in the New Era," the forum features five core topics: "Decoding the Global Economy," "China’s Outlook," "Industries in Turmoil," "Investing in People and the Planet," and "New Energy and Materials." These discussions explore how regional dynamics, emerging technologies, and evolving supply chains are reshaping industries worldwide. Approximately 1,800 representatives from over 90 countries have registered to participate.
Guanchun Wang, Chairman and CEO of Laiye was invited for a panel discussion on “Building an Agentic Economy,” alongside Kian Katanforoosh, Founder and CEO of Workera; Van Vu, Co-Founder and CEO of ELSA; and John Lombard, CEO of NTT DATA, Inc. Asia Pacific. Louise Victoria Matsakis of Wired Magazine moderated the dialogue, which examined how AI agents—autonomous systems capable of decision-making, collaboration, and end-to-end task execution—are transforming businesses into digital-first operations. As startups and enterprises race to deploy these “digital workers,” panelists addressed critical shifts in business models, governance, and workforce dynamics.
Key takeaways
From Assistants to Workforce: AI agents are evolving beyond tools into core drivers of business functions. John Lombard (NTT Data) highlighted two main adoption paths: augmenting existing RPA systems and reengineering complex processes.
Accuracy vs. Ambition: While LLMs excel in consumer applications, enterprise adoption demands near-perfect accuracy. Van Vu (ELSA) emphasized domain-specific fine-tuning to reduce hallucinations, while Kian Katanforoosh (Workera) advocated “future-proofing” via prompt engineering over model training.
The Human-AI Shift: Now, managers must orchestrate hybrid teams. As Guanchun Wang noted, “leadership mindset is key—evaluating managers by how well they deploy and monitor digital workers will soon be the norm.”
Laiye’s vision: A pioneer realized
Guanchun Wang revealed Laiye’s decade-long journey toward its founding mission: “AI agents for everyone.”
Pre-dating the generative AI boom, Laiye built solutions via chatbots, RPA, and document automation, proving enterprise appetite for automation. With LLMs, Laiye now delivers “digital workforce” solutions that empower clients in manufacturing, BFSI, and healthcare to scale globally. Wang predicts: “Fortune 500 firms will soon employ more digital than human workers—and startups leveraging agents will disrupt incumbents.”
Laiye’s customer success hinges on CEO-driven culture shifts, demonstrating how top-down implementation of AI across departments can be the key to unlocking meaningful transformation.
The road ahead
Wang closed with a call to action: “Speed is the new moat. Companies must reskill teams, rethink KPIs, and embrace AI agents not as support tools but as core colleagues.” As Laiye turns 10 next month, its vision—once aspirational—is now the blueprint for the agentic economy.
