Kai-Fu Lee on Innovation

Lee describes 01.AI as building tools to develop AI agents for companies, using open-source models customized for each client, and providing a 'white-glove service' at this early stage of AI-agent adoption to co-create applications generating cost savings and business.

Lee stated that 01.AI works with traditional-industry companies (banking, insurance, mining, energy) but will decline engagements where a client is unprepared for AI adoption (e.g., lacking prior digital transformation), because it would take too long and cost too much to succeed.

Lee was the founding director of Microsoft Research China (later Microsoft Research Asia) from 1998 to 2000, and served as president of Google China from 2005 to 2009, before founding venture capital firm Innovation Works (later renamed Sinovation Ventures) in 2009 and, in 2023, founding AI company 01.AI.

Lee is the author of 'AI Superpowers' (2018) and co-author of 'AI 2041' (with Chen Qiufan, 2021), has served as co-chair of the World Economic Forum's Global AI Council, and was named to Time's 2023 list of the 100 most influential people in AI.