AI should be used to inject more vitality into city culture, experts say

Against the backdrop of the proliferation of artificial intelligence, efforts should be made to explore innovative trajectories and new development frameworks to inject more vitality into city culture, experts said.

They were speaking at the 2025 World Conference on City Culture held in northeastern Shanghai's Hongkou district from Nov 14 to 16.

On one hand, the leapfrogging AI technologies and their wider application in everyday life have nurtured new city culture ecosystems. Culture, tourism, businesses, and sports have thus become more deeply integrated, generating new robust consumption engines, said experts attending the conference.

On the other hand, culture is produced and delivered in new ways with AI, injecting new creativity and energy. Enabled by the emerging technology, the influence of city culture is further expanded, going beyond time and space limits.

New culture business models have been nurtured, such as digitalized tourism and smart technology-based innovative industry, providing people with a deeper understanding of city culture in greater detail, said the conference attendants.

Emerging technologies have played an increasingly important role in Hongkou's economic development during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period. By the end of 2024, the GDP of the Hongkou district exceeded 150 billion yuan ($21 billion), with an average annual growth rate of 4.8 percent during the monitored five years. The combined value of technology service providers with a minimum annual sales revenue of 20 million yuan each has topped 70 billion yuan, a ninefold increase from that in 2020.