From 26 to 28 July, the largest, most professional, and most influential top-tier event in the global artificial intelligence (AI) field, the 2025 World AI Conference & High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance (WAIC 2025), was held, once again drawing worldwide AI attention to Shanghai.

As an important part of this year’s conference, the “AI Leadership” forum was held in the afternoon of 28 July. Under the theme “Enterprise Transformation and Development in the Age of AI - How to Guide Enterprises Through Business Cycles with AI Leadership”, the forum gathered top scholars, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem builders in AI to systematically explore how enhanced leadership becomes a key force enabling enterprises to navigate economic cycles under technological changes.

The forum extended a special invitation to Xu Xiaoliang, Co-CEO of Fosun International, to deliver the keynote speech. Titled “Fosun’s Path to Building AI Applications”, his speech offered his insightful observations and reflections on “Leadership in the AI Era”.

Xu Xiaoliang remarked: “In this profound era of transformation where AI is reshaping the world, Fosun has chosen to ‘All in AI’,with a vision to become a leading AI application implementor across industries. This marks a pivotal shift from a ‘business + AI’ model to an ‘AI + business’ paradigm. True AI leadership is not defined by machines serving humans; it is realized through the creation of a shared destiny between humanity and technology. In this moment of immense opportunity, AI represents the greatest premium of our time. Fosun is ready to stand alongside global partners, embracing this advantage and stepping boldly into the future together with AI.”

On the same day, the book Leadership in the AI Era: Concepts and Practice, co-authored by Fudan University Professor Bao Jiming and Xu Xiaoliang among others, was officially released. The book systematically explores and defines the core leadership paradigm “symbiotic leadership” in the AI era to help business leaders reshape future leadership and lead in the symbiotic age.

Meanwhile, the “AI Professor Bao” 2.0 intelligent agent also made its debut at the forum. As a digital avatar of Professor Bao Jiming, it uses FuturMind’s original cognitive extraction technology to construct a unique leadership thinking model and dynamic knowledge graph through precise thought profiling. It helps users realize leadership concepts and practices integrated with AI, achieving true unity of knowledge and action.

Fully Embracing AI: Not a Choice, But a Compulsory Question

“AI competition has undoubtedly become the core battlefield for the next generation of technological sovereignty, impacting the fundamental competitiveness of both nations and enterprises,”said Xu Xiaoliang. “In 2025, we are at a critical moment when AI is actively reshaping the world. Fortunately, with representative forces such as DeepSeek and others emerging, China is making the transition from a technology follower to a rule maker.”

He compared this to the launch of the Ford Model T in 1908. Back then, carriage manufacturers faced a choice of whether to improve carriages or embrace automobiles. History proved that those who chose to refine carriages are now relics in museums. Those who embraced the automobile laid the foundations of modern transportation and chose a new era, not just new tools.

“History has never left us; it is replaying even faster in the AI era,” Xu Xiaoliang emphasized. He highlighted that 92% of the global Fortune 500 companies have already integrated AI workflows. AI is reshaping business rules not over years, but week by week. “Unlike traditional economic cycles—boom, bust, and cross-cycle—or market shifts from brief bull runs to enduring bear phases, the AI era transcends these patterns. It is not a story of volatility, but a transformative and enduring age of dividends.”

Xu Xiaoliang outlined three consensus enterprises must adopt in this era:

· First, regarding the definition of AI: AI is not simply a technology, but a revolutionary infrastructure. “Infrastructure” implies it is indispensable and relevant to everyone. “Revolutionary” means it can bring about disruptive reshaping. Looking back at human history, from the steam engine to electricity to the internet, the emergence of every major new technology has overturned everything that came before, reshaping the underlying logic of economic and social operation.

· Secondly, the rise of AI is fundamentally reshaping production dynamics. Organizations are entering a new era of human-machine collaboration, where decision-making shifts from solely human cognition to integrated intelligence. The human role is evolving from a producer bound by experience to a super-intelligent agent empowered by AI. This transformation leads to an exponential surge in productivity, driving unprecedented gains in scale, depth, and speed.

· Third, those who apply AI well will undoubtedly eliminate those who do not in the future. Fully embracing AI is not a choice; it is a compulsory question for survival. The key to answering this question lies in vision and determination.

Fosun’s Strategy: Evolving from “Business + AI” to the Transformative Shift of “AI + Business”

Amid this profound transformation, Fosun has made a choice: All in AI.

Xu Xiaoliang clarified that Fosun’s positioning is not to develop foundation models, but to be an industry-leading AI application implementor. “Put simply: we don’t make wheels—we master the art of driving.”

He said open-source large models are an irreversible trend, and future competition depends on effective application. The value of AI lies in rooting it into concrete industry scenes and solving real business pain points.

Fosun’s deep understanding of “application” is the pivotal change from “business + AI” to “AI + business”. The former is like installing smart switches in a finished building’s rooms, improving local efficiency but not fundamentally changing the building’s structure, function or value.

Fosun’s “AI + business” means building the house from the foundation up, embedding AI genes, reconstructing the underlying architecture, and re-examining and streamlining every core business process and every value creation node.

“To be frank, many companies, including Fosun, are still in the first phase of ‘business + AI.’”, Xu Xiaoliang said. He used Fosun Pharma’s “excellent product strength”, and Fosun Tourism’s “excellent marketing strength” as examples of how Fosun enhances core competitiveness under “business + AI”.

In pharmaceuticals industry, the “30 rule” is known as developing a new drug typically takes 10 years and billions of dollars, with under 10% successful rate. Fosun Pharma recognizes AI’s vast potential for improving drug R&D quality and efficiency. For decision support, Fosun Pharma created PharmAID, the industry’s first AI decision intelligence platform, providing critical information support for decision-making processes, with a 50% improvement in information accuracy compared to general large models, and an average 30% increase in information retrieval efficiency. For business efficiency, they developed AI tools that accelerated R&D efficiency. By applying AI technologies, the development cycle of a new hyaluronidase enzyme sped up from 18 months to 5 months.

As the soul of Club Med’s 75-year legacy, G.O (Gentle Organizer) has always stood out in the global vacation market, thanks to its versatile talents, enthusiastic interactions, and thoughtful service. Now, Fosun Tourism is taking this iconic role into the AI era with the launch of AI G.O, a smart concierge that delivers personalized services throughout every stage of the guest journey. From the “pre-sale, during-sale, and post-sale” touchpoints in marketing, to the “before, during, and after the trip” phases in operations, AI G.O is seamlessly integrated to co-create unforgettable vacation experiences with guests.

AI Leadership Guided by “Three Symbioses” for the Future

“We are clear that Fosun’s future focus is ‘AI + business’, making AI-first a core company DNA. The challenge is not technology but organization, with AI leadership as the core.” Xu Xiaoliang emphasized that leadership remains the fundamental ability amid constant change.

Leadership in the AI era is undergoing a profound transformation: from managing people to orchestrating human-machine collaboration; from exercising control and supervision to fostering empowerment and service; and from acting as commanders to evolving into chief enablers.

Xu Xiaoliang pointed out that these innovations require managers to possess “AI leadership”, which is the ability to lead AI. In the new bookLeadership in the AI Era: Concepts and Practices,co-authored by Professor Bao Jiming and Xu Xiaoliang among others, it emphasizes that the core of AI leadership is reflected in “three symbioses”:

· Symbiosis between human brain and machine, a deep collaboration between human creativity and machine intelligence.

· Symbiosis between traditional and digital economies, a mutual dependence and complementary advantages between traditional experiences and new technologies.

· Symbiosis between individual enterprises and ecosystem, rooted in “win-win and altruism”, and expanding the pie through collaboration and co-creation.

“The vision of symbiosis is not theoretical but must realize ‘all-member symbiosis’ collective evolution. The ultimate state is ‘all members as partners’.True AI leadership is not defined by machines serving humans; it is realized through the creation of a shared destiny between humanity and technology,” Xu Xiaoliang concluded. “The future is here;AI represents the greatest premium of our time. Fosun is ready to stand alongside global partners, embracing this advantage and stepping boldly into the future together with AI.”