Sellers of smart devices, AI agents and warehouse automation now have a list of pilots, standards and sandbox tests that nine ministries have committed to run.
China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and eight other central agencies have issued a policy document with 18 measures for applying AI and related technologies across retail, consumer services and goods distribution. The opinions, signed on October 13 under file number 商建函〔2026〕551号 and posted on MOFCOM’s website on October 19, are co-signed by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the People’s Bank of China and the State Administration for Market Regulation. Officials from MOFCOM, MIIT and the culture ministry presented the measures at a State Council Information Office briefing the same day, Xinhua reported.
The document, titled Opinions on Accelerating Technology-Driven Commerce (关于加快推进科技兴商的意见), sets no numeric targets or milestone dates. Its substance lies in the technologies and business formats it names: AI built into product research, design, manufacturing and marketing; smart products running on "secure and reliable" open-source operating systems; commercial AI agents; embodied AI, meaning AI that operates physical machines such as robots; and brain-computer interfaces. It cites the 15th Five-Year Plan outline as its basis and makes MOFCOM the coordinator.
For companies that sell smart devices, AI services or logistics automation in China, the text maps where ministries plan pilots, standards and financing. It follows a separate 17-measure plan on "AI+consumption" that MOFCOM and seven other departments issued in June, described in a Xinhua explainer at the time, and Beijing’s move to bring consumer AI into its five-year spending plan.
The measures run from product design to the delivery route
On the goods side, the opinions call for deeper implementation of the "AI+manufacturing" special action and a larger supply of smart phones, computers, home devices, wearables and robots. Manufacturers are encouraged to use industrial large models and edge computing to build adaptive flexible production lines, to expand customer-to-manufacturer (C2M) production and to develop AI-based customization brands.
The services measures ask household-service companies to build smart platforms with technology firms, promise published case studies on restaurant digitalization, and support AI in health management, pharmacy services and rehabilitation care. A pilot program for "AI+culture and tourism" would combine AI with extended reality in visitor products.
Distribution gets its own special action on digital and intelligent supply chains, covering automated multi-level warehouses, smart logistics equipment and unmanned delivery. A quality e-commerce program would spread an "authenticate before shipping" model, tighten online checks on China Compulsory Certification (CCC) marks and pilot traceable QR codes on certified products. Economic Information Daily grouped the 18 measures into six areas.
Agent governance and data rules sit beside the industrial push
The most specific provisions concern commercial AI agents. The document asks for specialized agents for shopping guidance, store operations and logistics, and for embodied AI in household services and commercial logistics. China’s nine-agency plan commits regulators to "prudent" tiered governance of commercial AI agents, based on how they are used. It also calls for defining limits on how commercial data is collected, used and shared, and for exploring a negative list for data applications. New technologies and business models may undergo stress tests and sandbox pilots "within a controllable scope."
On standards, the agencies will promote the national standards series on AI terminal intelligence grading (《人工智能终端智能化分级》) and work toward one standards system covering all device types. For startups, the opinions extend an existing support plan for small AI businesses by directing affordable computing capacity to AI startups in commerce, and call for high-quality datasets and trusted data spaces in the sector.
The financing language is modest, relying on existing funding channels and asking banks to lend for new consumption scenarios and equipment upgrades in commercial facilities. Compared with the June plan, which centered on demand for AI products in homes, the October text reaches further into supply chains, data rules and agent oversight.
Ministries tied the plan to consumer demand and factory adoption
Assistant Minister of Commerce Yuan Xiaoming said the move "aims to meet the immediate need to boost consumption and invigorate the consumer market," Xinhua reported. Retail sales of services grew 5% in the first nine months of 2026, against 1% for goods, and smart glasses sales on major platforms rose 110%. Yuan described the measures as tied to real application scenarios and meant to use the scale of China’s market to connect technology with buyers, according to a separate Xinhua report on the briefing.
Wei Wei, director of MIIT’s Department of Science and Technology, said AI adoption among large industrial firms had passed 30%. He said MIIT would work on brain-computer interfaces and embodied AI devices, develop intelligent machine tools, farm machinery and medical devices, and cultivate AI application service providers to get more smart products onto store shelves. Zhou Hanping of the culture ministry’s industrial development department said the ministry would test new equipment in tourism venues and explore mechanisms to confirm ownership of, price and trade cultural digital assets.
The first concrete outputs to watch are the lists the document implies: the restaurant digitalization case studies, the sites chosen for the AI+culture and tourism pilots and the first sandbox approvals for commercial agents. New occupational categories, such as logistics robot application technology, would show the plan reaching hiring. How it fits with the wider push to scale AI uses is covered in EastFrontier’s report on China’s AI Plus campaign.