Honor CEO li jian argues AI gateway competition should prioritize user trust over zero-sum battles

At the 2026 Mobile Network Conference on November 6, Honor CEO Li Jian asserted that the competition for AI gateways should not be viewed as a zero-sum game. He proposed that the industry should focus on earning user trust and allowing gateway sovereignty to return to the users to foster a new intelligent economy ecosystem. Li Jian noted that the convergence of computing power, large models, and embodied AI is fundamentally reshaping industry paradigms, moving beyond mere feature tweaks. He argued that the shift in commercial logic is from attention-based monetization to intent-based monetization, where value resides in the results entrusted to AI. He outlined three critical hurdles for the industry: continuous capability breakthroughs, contextual scarcity—the AI's need to understand user identity and history—and trust scarcity, which hinges on the AI being reliable and controllable. To address this, Honor plans to collaborate with China Mobile and partners to build a user-centric ecosystem. This includes co-building gateways by linking entities like Lingxi, Qianwen, Doubao, and Gemini, and jointly establishing a complete trust chain covering verifiable networks, identities, and settlements. Furthermore, Honor will launch a Token package on the Honor Magic9 series and explore new business models around Token distribution and subscriptions with China Mobile.