AI set to drive people's spending on services
Artificial intelligence is expected to become a new frontier in service consumption, according to a report by Shanghai Consumer Council on Thursday.
The 2024 Service Consumption Demand and Trend Survey Report, covering 6,000 respondents, indicates that service consumption is gradually becoming an important driving force in boosting consumption, the council said.
As many as 85.62 percent of respondents anticipated that the proportion of their expenditure on service consumption would increase in the future, with 43.85 percent even expecting continuous growth in expenditure.
AI is reshaping consumption.
"Currently, consumers' pursuit of life quality, emotional value, and health has become the main driving force behind the growth of service consumption," said Tang Jiansheng, deputy secretary-general of the council.
Of the service consumption items respondents expect to purchase in the next year, the top three were maintenance and repair of cars, central air conditioning (43.38 percent), and floor heating, film and television reality show memberships (40.25 percent), and health and fitness services (35.80 percent).
The survey found that large models may be a new opportunity for service consumption.
A total of 15.9 percent of respondents planned to purchase membership services for large models by 2025, while 52.75 percent of respondents hoped that major appliances and cars would have remote maintenance services based on artificial intelligence.
Under the influence of multiple factors such as the rapid development of new energy in the automotive industry and the increasing awareness of consumer maintenance, car owners have higher demands for car maintenance services, said Rachel Yan, marketing vice president of Tuhu Car.
The survey showed that 98.62 percent of respondents had a strong desire to have a household services robot.
Some 63.98 percent of respondents were looking forward to the official use of autonomous driving functions in cars and wished to purchase related services, and 65.53 percent hoped there would be more intelligent devices to replace domestic helper services.
The results showed that 98.62 percent of respondents expressed a strong desire to have a household robot for services.
"We found that a large model intelligent agent capable of operating mobile phones on behalf of humans, with functions covering news search, product purchase, food ordering, and social contact, is gradually attracting the attention of a large number of consumers," said Tang.
Surveys showed that 24.63 percent of respondents were willing to pay for mobile large model intelligent agents, expecting these agents to fully consider the interests of consumers and provide them with reliable information when searching for products.
