BEIJING, July 15 (Xinhua) -- At a technology bazaar in Longfusi, a Beijing cultural landmark dating back nearly 600 years and once home to one of the city's most important temple fairs, a compact camping cart rolled quietly and independently through the crowd, keeping a steady distance from its user and steering around people in its path.
Zhang Lei, a local camping enthusiast, was impressed enough to place an order on the spot. At less than 2,000 yuan (about 294 U.S. dollars), the model he chose is priced lower than a typical mid-range smartphone.
"Pulling a cart loaded with tents and cooking gear for several kilometers used to be exhausting," Zhang said. "This one follows you and automatically avoids obstacles, leaving your hands free. It works even better than I expected, and the price is affordable."
This purchase captures a broader shift in China's AI consumer market. After becoming familiar to many users via products such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, AI is increasingly taking physical forms, as Chinese companies embed mature capabilities into products designed for everyday use.
At the bazaar, held alongside the 2026 Global Digital Economy Conference earlier this month, more than 300 AI products from over 40 companies were available as consumer goods with clear price tags, rather than displayed merely as conceptual prototypes.
A few meters from the camping cart, an elderly visitor wearing a lightweight exoskeleton tried walking and jogging under the guidance of a staff member. Nearby, meanwhile, an emotion-aware plush toy interacted with people through voice and touch, offering a brief form of companionship.
What stood out was not necessarily technological novelty, but commercial viability: visual recognition, sensor-based control and voice interaction were being turned into physical products that ordinary consumers can readily purchase.
Exoskeletons offer one of the clearest examples. Once largely confined to military and medical rehabilitation uses, with some costing hundreds of thousands of yuan, consumer exoskeletons in China now typically sell for between 6,000 and 20,000 yuan.
Beijing-based outdoor company Toread launched a consumer-grade exoskeleton priced at roughly 7,000 yuan in June. Gao Yuwen, the company's brand manager, said inquiries and purchases have continued to rise, with sales on a single platform topping 100 units in one day.
Rental services are lowering the barrier further. A park in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, offers exoskeleton experiences for 9.9 yuan an hour, while rentals have also been introduced at scenic spots elsewhere in China including Mount Tai, the Great Wall and Huangshan Mountain. Across the emerging rental market, a common rate is approximately 80 yuan for three hours.
For Charlee Charles, a travel support specialist at Chase Travel who tried an exoskeleton at the Great Wall, the technology was valuable not simply for its novelty, but for the access it could provide.
"There are many elderly people and people with disabilities who dream of doing something like this but feel they cannot," she said. "With this kind of assistance, they do not have to remain at the bottom."
Charles said the relatively low cost could make travel more inclusive, adding that the integration of such technology into everyday life could have broad potential for the tourism industry.
The same shift is visible in AI companion products. At a robotics retail store in Beijing, an entry-level educational device capable of storytelling and basic voice interaction sells for 349 yuan. A mid-range home companion with long-term memory and proactive conversation functions is priced at 2,299 yuan, while more advanced emotional-support robots can cost over 10,000 yuan.
AI products are also reaching consumers through a widening range of retail channels. AI glasses and translation earphones have become routine merchandise at the Yiwu International Trade Market in Zhejiang, while robotics experience stores have opened in cities across China.
Behind the falling prices is China's robust manufacturing ecosystem. Its AI hardware sector draws on domestic supply chains spanning acoustics, optics, batteries, molds and final assembly. This allows companies to refine products faster, keep costs down and move new AI hardware concepts into mass production more quickly.
Scale may also help. China's population of 1.4 billion and more than 1 billion internet users provide a large and varied consumer base in which different types of AI hardware can find distinct applications. Exoskeletons are finding uses in hiking, rehabilitation and elderly care, while emotion-aware toys are useful for child companionship and psychological comfort, and automatic-following devices are handy in camping, logistics and short-distance transport.
Policy is also helping turn these possibilities into actual markets. The outline of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) lists "AI plus" consumption quality improvement as one of the priority areas for AI-enabled development. Last month, the Ministry of Commerce and seven other government departments released an implementation guideline document containing 17 measures in five areas to promote deeper integration of AI with consumer markets by expanding smart product consumption, empowering services consumption and creating new consumption scenarios.
China's digital consumption reached 25.3 trillion yuan in 2025, up 8.7 percent year on year. As shipments of smart wearables, service robots and smart-home products continue to rise, AI functions are increasingly becoming mainstream product features rather than premium add-ons.
The spread of such products suggests that China's AI ambitions are being expressed not only via increasingly powerful models, but also through the ability to turn complex technologies into affordable tools designed for everyday use.
Joe Weinman, founder of the International Institute for Future Industries, noted that China in general, and Beijing in particular, is leading the world in many of these technologies through a powerful combination of government support, academic excellence, entrepreneurial innovation and highly talented individuals.
"By bringing together data, algorithms, computing infrastructure and human talent, these new productive forces are creating highly capable yet affordable solutions that will benefit not only China but also the wider world," he said. ■
