February 27, 2026 – Li Xiang, the chairman and CEO of Li Auto, recently shared his insights on WeChat Moments regarding the impact of AI and intelligent agents (Agents) on individuals with varying levels of professional expertise.
He firmly stated, “In the era of AI, the value created by ordinary people is negligible. This includes the 80% of individuals with average skills, even those who have already adopted Agents and AI tools. Their main purpose should be to serve themselves, as they lack any significant external market competitiveness.”
Li Xiang pointed out that in most fields, even when both ordinary individuals and top experts utilize Agent tools, there remains a vast gap in the value they generate. The programming field is no exception. In the pre-AI era, the professional value gap between average practitioners and top experts was 100-fold. However, in the AI era, this gap is expected to widen to a staggering 10,000-fold. The idea that relying on AI and Agents can bridge this professional value gap is unrealistic, provided that top experts fully embrace these tools.
He also mentioned that AI technology will act as a “magnifying glass” and a “microscope” for professional capabilities. In the pre-AI era, average performers in tech companies could still find a foothold. But in the AI era, the disparities in individual professional abilities will become clearly visible, and the weaknesses of average performers will no longer be concealable.
It is reported that Li Auto is in the process of transforming from a traditional automaker to an embodied AI technology company, with AI at the core of its corporate strategy and technological system restructuring. Within the company, there is a mandatory requirement for first-level department heads to learn and apply AI tools in their work. Li Xiang himself also uses AI products like Claude Code for tasks such as polishing his Weibo posts.
