Increasing use of intelligent agents accelerates digital transformation, create new professions across industries

The increasing application of intelligent agents is playing an essential role in accelerating digital transformation in traditional industries, such as oil and gas, in China, while simultaneously creating new professions to propel intelligent development across sectors.

At the China Petroleum and Petrochemical Enterprise Information Technology Exchange Conference, held in Beijing from May 15 to 16, enterprises showcased numerous cases of application of intelligent agents integrated into various industries.

One such case was from Changqing Oilfield, China's largest oil and gas field, which has achieved automated control of over 50,000 oil wells through intelligent agent coordination.

"Coordination of the intelligent agent has enabled the intelligent analysis of videos from over 40,000 cameras. It can instantly detect oil leaks or fires, with the rate of accuracy improved to over 90 percent," said Shan Jiquan, executive director of the digital and intelligent business department of the Changqing Oilfield, a branch of PetroChina, China's largest oil and gas producer.

This intelligent agent is designed to assist experts in the oil and gas industry. It possesses professional expertise and comprehension on a par with industry specialists through the accumulation of vast cross-disciplinary knowledge in the field.

"Through this intelligent agent, we can help our employees in the oil and gas industry quickly search for information, generate documents, and conduct document reviews. Moreover, it is self-learning and self-evolving, continuously acquiring more real-time knowledge," said Qi Chen, chief planning engineer of the industrial digitalization solutions department at Chinese tech company ZTE.

In the new model of human-machine collaboration, artificial intelligent agents will handle standardized, repetitive, and even complex tasks, while humans will focus on innovation and decision-making. This complementary partnership boosts both work efficiency and quality.

From digital avatars to industry-specific assistants, artificial intelligent agents not only introduce a new model of human-machine collaboration but also create new career opportunities.

"This transformation will create at least three entirely new professions: intelligent agent systems operation maintenance specialists, intelligent agent resource distribution coordinators, and intelligent agent collaboration designers. Driven by this trend, artificial intelligent agents will become the core force driving productive force leaps, profoundly reshaping our industrial ecosystem, organizational structures, and the role of humans," said Huang Jizhou, chief architect of intelligent agent business at Chinese tech giant Baidu.

Increasing use of intelligent agents accelerates digital transformation, create new professions across industries

The President of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Annalena Baerbock, has warned that the United States' withdrawal from multiple UN agencies weakens international organizations and harms people around the world.

In an exclusive interview with China Media Group during her recent visit to Beijing, Baerbock addressed the implications of the U.S. withdrawal from more than 60 international organizations and mechanisms by January this year, roughly half of which are UN-related.

"In an interconnected world, what happened in one part of the world affects the rest of the world, and even the biggest superpowers, they cannot protect themselves against the global crises, as climate change, as a pandemic, as we saw in COVID, but also now with relation to the war between the U.S. and Iran in the Middle East. The effects of being felt everywhere and the U.S. is calling for support, so this underlines again that even the strongest superpowers need the United Nations, need a clear set of common," said the UNGA president.

"If they leave part of the United (Nations) organizations, this weakens the organizations, which harms people all around the world. We saw it with a lack of support now for the World Food Program. But it's also not in the interest of the bigger powers themselves, so it's in the self-interest of every member state, especially the strong ones, to strengthen the multilateral system and the UN agencies. And also, on a legal issue, because I'm a lawyer, I'm a strong defender of international law without any double standard, some of the organizations, you cannot just leave anyway. So even if you announce it, you are being bound by the common rules within our United Nations," she said.

Baerbock paid a visit to China from April 29 to 30, at the invitation of Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi.

U.S. withdrawals weaken global institutions, harm people worldwide: UNGA president