Beyond Gaming: AI Innovations Shine at ChinaJoy 2026

Crowds are flocking to ChinaJoy 2026, Asia's premier digital entertainment expo, for far more than just video games. Held from Friday through Monday in Shanghai, this year's summer gala has transformed into a tech-driven event for everyone, attracting global entrepreneurs seeking Chinese partners for AI education, visionary developer adapting personal sci-fi novel into AAA blockbusters and casual visitors exploring AI beauty and productivity tools.

Among the international visitors is Manuel Tausch, co-founder and CEO of Vancouver-based Moonspire Games. Tausch is at ChinaJoy searching for domestic investors, partners and distributors to expand his AI education business into China's private schools, international programs and bilingual K-12 institutions. He showcases Speechbound, an app featuring AI-powered, story-driven quests, mini-games and contextual challenges that "turn language practice into an immersive game world."

Tausch earned a booth at ChinaJoy after winning the Best International Team award in the DigiLoong GAIC Competition, an AI application contest organized by Shanghai-based gaming firm Century Huatong. The four-month competition attracted nearly 200 applicants submitting 100 apps spanning fields like AI education,brain-computer interfaces and smart travel.

Wang Ji, Chairman of Century Huatong, noted that commercial awareness among AI applications has significantly increased. He stated that many teams have moved beyond the demo stage to demonstrate actual revenue and clear business models as they transition from the lab to the market.

For Pu Guannan, founder and CEO of Beijing Starscape, ChinaJoy is the platform to fulfill a lifelong dream: adapting a 220,000-word sci-fi novel he wrote in his youth into a massive AAA sci-fi game called A.H.2100 (Spacetime Whispers). With a planned budget of 300 million yuan (US$41.5 million), the title is slated for release around 2029.

Speaking at a ChinaJoy forum, Pu, the game industry veteran, described the project as far more than just a game, calling it a deeply personal exploration of human emotion and relationships.

AI is also making waves for mainstream consumers at the expo.

Cosplayers packed the booth for Meitu, a popular photo-editing platform, during an on-site retouching "exam". Anime enthusiast Xiao Chen used the beauty tools with fellow cosplayers turned out to be perfect for event shots. Meanwhile, blogger Xiao Yu praised Meitu's natural filters for fixing common event lighting issues–like washed-out skin or heavy makeup texture–while preserving natural features. Meitu also debuted Picchi, its new human-portrait AI agent, to assist cosplayers through every step of shooting and photo editing.

Making its ChinaJoy debut, Kingsoft Office showcased its AI office agents Lingxi and WPS Comate, alongside a major storage upgrade for WPS, which now has 600 million monthly active users globally. Starting in August, WPS users can freely customize installation file paths, giving them greater control over system storage and computer maintenance.

All those moves show the integration of AI and gaming. According to a report released in ChinaJoy, AI has been adopted over 86 percent game research processes now.