On the evening of 15 April 2026, the second instalment of the Xiang Shuai Digital Wealth Series of live-streamed lectures, held jointly with the 54th session of the Chengze Business Forum at the National School of Development, Peking University (NSD), took place. The economist Xiang Shuai, founder of the Xiang Shuai Digital Economy Research Centre, delivered a lecture entitled ‘New Markets: The Rise of Platforms and the AI Baton Pass’, offering a systematic analysis of how markets have evolved in the digital era, the role played by platforms, the new transformations brought about by AI agents, and the development paths open to both enterprises and individuals.

The event was co-hosted by the Xiang Shuai Digital Economy Research Centre and the BiMBA Business School of NSD, with support from NSD’s AI Entrepreneurship Accelerator Programme and its EMBA Centre, and was simulcast across multiple platforms. 

In her lecture, Xiang Shuai began by clearly delineating three phases in the development of China’s market economy: the establishment phase from 1978 to 2008; the platformisation phase from 2008 to 2025; and, from 2026 onwards, a new phase dominated by AI agents. Platforms and artificial intelligence, she observed, are fundamentally reshaping the way markets function.

She went on to expound the essential nature of markets and their historical evolution—from the local bazaars of the agrarian age, through the global pricing mechanisms of the industrial era, to the platform-led dynamics of the digital age. The means by which resources are allocated has progressively shifted from reliance on price alone towards a system in which prices, data, algorithms and platform rules all exert influence concurrently. As the central market organisers of the digital era, platforms integrate search, transactions, social interaction, lifestyle services, AI models and a host of other functions, enabling cross-border and cross-temporal transaction matching, real-time data feedback and increasing returns to scale. At the same time, however, they bring new problems in the form of excessive concentration of market-organising power, distribution rights, evaluation rights and data rights.

Comparing the development trajectories of Chinese and American platforms, Xiang Shuai suggested that Chinese platforms have effectively reorganised markets that were previously underdeveloped, akin to ‘building a new city’, which has given them an edge in application scenarios such as consumer internet, local life services and logistics. American platforms, by contrast, have focused on optimising mature markets—more like ‘renovating an old city’—resulting in greater strength in cloud computing, foundational technologies, base models and enterprise services.

Looking towards the era of AI agents, Xiang Shuai argued that the market is on the cusp of another round of transformation: user behaviour is shifting from opening a platform to search or browse towards simply expressing a need and having AI handle the rest, a development that could fundamentally alter market entry points. The value of platforms that rely purely on information matching is likely to diminish markedly, whereas the value of back-end infrastructure—payments, logistics, order fulfilment and after-sales service—will prove more durable. Drawing on examples from e-commerce, social media, online travel and education, she noted that the impact on different types of platforms varies considerably.

Reflecting on the critical changes affecting markets in the digital age, Xiang Shuai stressed that whereas a traditional market economy is a spontaneously evolved order, the digital and AI era gives rise to a designed spontaneous order, one that demands greater attention to rule-making fairness, data transparency and the clear attribution of responsibility.

She concluded by advising enterprises to reorient themselves around the user and to build strengths that AI cannot readily replicate, while urging individuals to enhance their core creativity, adapt to new modes of collaboration, and seize the opportunities presented by the age.