NIO Inc. (NIO) founder, chairman, and CEO William Li delivered a speech at the Internet Entrepreneurs Forum of the 2026 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit on the morning of November 5, sharing his views on AI and smart driving.
He stated that in the past, people viewed cars as cold machines, but the development of smart technology has turned automobiles into mobile living spaces and increasingly emotionally intelligent companions that understand their owners.
The global automotive industry has a total scale of roughly $7 trillion to $9 trillion. If the application of artificial intelligence in the automotive sector can create 15% more user value, industrial value, and social value, it could generate over $1.2 trillion in commercial value.
Currently, the most shipped embodied intelligent agents are smart electric vehicles. The computing power, sensors, and large models in each vehicle, covering the entire process from perception to decision-making and final execution, have all been proven through. Smart electric vehicles have become the largest AI application industry.
Li also mentioned that a decade ago, the industry had just begun discussing the significance of smart driving, with some envisioning that its meaning was robotaxis. "But we have always firmly believed that the greatest value of smart driving should be freeing drivers' energy and reducing traffic accidents."
There are over a billion vehicles worldwide, and the total daily driving time globally exceeds 1.5 billion hours. Without smart driving technology, driving is a highly energy-consuming task, and when drowsy or tired, safety risks are very high. The annual number of road traffic deaths worldwide exceeds 1.16 million, representing an enormous loss of life.
In the first half of this year, according to data from four major insurance companies, the accident-related safety losses for NIO Inc. (NIO) users decreased by 38.4%, and the average safe mileage under human-machine co-driving has reached 8 times that of human driving alone. The significance of continuous advancements in smart driving technology lies in continuously reducing the related losses in productivity and lives as much as possible.
"The greatest value of smart driving should not be making taxi drivers and ride-hailing drivers lose their jobs. We believe the value of AI should be making people's work easier and safer, rather than stripping away the meaning of human existence," he said.
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