The savings generated by Midea Group's implementation of AI have grown from roughly CNY40 million in 2023 to about CNY180 million in 2024, and the figure is expected to reach CNY600 million (USD86 million) in 2025 and climb to CNY900 million this year. Midea Cloud President Jin Jiang said Midea aims to slash costs by around CNY900 million (USD129 million) through AI-related applications this year. In some areas, AI applications can trim costs by as much as 90 percent, Jin said. The more than 40 industrial AI agents that Midea Cloud released to the public were selected from tens of thousands of agents already used internally at Midea, and the Foshan-based company has rolled out large-scale AI applications across 158 core business scenarios.
“Companies need to shore up their digital foundations before talking about large-scale AI adoption,” Jin said. “The effectiveness of AI applications depends heavily on the level of business participation and the quality of basic data.”
Before the agents, losses caused by equipment shutdowns or quality issues on Midea's production lines had to be manually calculated every few hours, making it difficult to quickly pinpoint the root cause. In the supply chain, the vast variety of suppliers and materials makes operations vulnerable to sudden disruptions such as typhoons.
Midea Cloud, the digital arm of Midea Group, unveiled its matrix of industrial AI agents in January 2026, together with the launch of its Meiking AIGC 3.1 platform.
Midea's 158 AI scenarios span research and development, manufacturing, supply chains, quality control, logistics, finance, human resources and overseas services. In production line management, Midea has deployed multiple AI agents to analyze losses, so that daily losses can now be broken down to specific processes and job roles, with targeted improvement suggestions provided. In the supply chain, AI agents can quickly assess the scope of a disruption's impact and propose alternative sourcing plans. Midea has also introduced AI agents into human resources and legal affairs to assist in resume screening, campus recruitment interviews and contract review processes.
Looking ahead, Jin said that in areas such as sales forecasting and production planning, companies may appear on the surface to be using their original systems, while behind the scenes AI will increasingly provide decision-making support, with human intervention becoming less and less frequent.