Fu Sheng Discusses the AI Era: The Rise of Young Talent and the Decline of Experience Value

At the end of May 2026, during the final round of the “AI Young Pioneers: Fu Sheng Task Force” hackathon held in Beijing, teams of children with an average age below 18 completed practical applications and robot projects within a 12-hour time limit. Among the spectators was Fu Sheng, Chairman and CEO of Cheetah Mobile. When he visited the venue past 11 p.m., he observed that the randomly grouped children had already assigned roles among themselves and submitted over 50 pull requests by morning. One team, consisting of an 11-year-old, a 13-year-old, and a 16-year-old, developed an AI fitness app called “Lianlema” that reportedly surpassed the quality of a similar app Fu Sheng himself had spent weeks developing.

“I was overwhelmed by the young talent. I was genuinely convinced,” Fu Sheng shared in an interview with Fenghuang Finance. This was not his first time being taken aback by the capabilities of young individuals. A few months earlier, a 14-year-old middle school student, Jiang Muzhen, had nearly won Cheetah Mobile’s AI contest and later went on to claim victory in the “Zhongguancun North Latitude Lobster Contest,” earning a prize of 200,000 yuan. After speaking with Jiang for an hour, Fu Sheng remarked, “I can’t pinpoint exactly when the roles reversed,” leaving the parents watching the live broadcast momentarily speechless.

The AI Era and the Rise of Young Talent

Reflecting on the phenomena he observed during the hackathon, Fu Sheng highlighted the rapid decline in the value of experience in the AI era. According to him, the acquisition of experience has been democratized by AI, rendering it ineffective as a competitive advantage. Experienced professionals often find themselves constrained by outdated knowledge and slower to adapt to new technologies. By contrast, young people, with their innate learning ability, curiosity, and creativity, are better positioned to adapt to the demands of the modern era.

At Cheetah Mobile, all employees are required to use AI in their work. This initiative has even seen employees in administrative roles, who have no prior programming experience, produce code that effectively meets their day-to-day needs. Fu Sheng remarked, “Experience no longer holds the same value. It’s not that it’s unimportant, but others can acquire it so quickly now.”

He likens AI to transformative technologies in human history, such as the steam engine and the printing press. Today’s teenagers, he argues, can harness AI to stand on the shoulders of humanity’s collective knowledge, reducing learning costs significantly compared to previous generations. Fu Sheng firmly believes that transformative eras offer unparalleled opportunities to the youth.

Reconstructing the Education System and

Reassessing Academic Credentials

Criticizing the uniformity of modern education as a byproduct of industrialization, Fu Sheng argues that AI-powered Q&A-based learning is far more efficient than traditional methods like textbook reading. He predicts that academic qualifications will lose their importance, and universities will evolve into centers for social experiences rather than educational credentials. He also foresees a gradual elimination of academic requirements in hiring practices.

“AI has leveled the playing field for knowledge acquisition. Investing in property in prestigious school districts is less valuable than providing children with opportunities to experiment and explore new things,” Fu Sheng said. He emphasized that in the AI era, the traditional hierarchy of liberal arts versus sciences no longer holds, and the most important factor is the direction of a child’s own interests.

Cheetah Mobile’s internal practices align with this philosophy. By mandating the use of AI across all departments, even administrative staff are creating functional code to meet practical needs. The emergence of new roles like FDEs (Full-Process Developers) also reflects the transformation of educational systems and the evolving nature of work.

Organizational Flattening and “Boss Thinking”

Cheetah Mobile’s core approach to implementing AI across the workforce consists of three phases. First, leadership uses AI themselves to develop hands-on experience. Second, the company fosters a cultural shift, requiring all employees—including those in administrative roles—to utilize AI in their work. Third, it establishes special business zones led by young talent.

Fu Sheng believes AI significantly broadens the scope of individual work while reducing communication costs within traditionally hierarchical organizations. He points to the example of Anthropic, a 2,000-person company growing at a faster pace than the 20,000-strong DeepMind, to illustrate the emergence of flat organizational structures as a trend.

“Only those who start from the needs of the job and take full responsibility for the outcomes—those with a ‘boss mindset’—will remain irreplaceable by AI,” Fu Sheng asserted. According to him, skill-based jobs are gradually being replaced by AI, making adaptability and leadership critical.

Business Choices and Shifting Self-Perceptions

Over the years, Cheetah Mobile has shifted its focus from PC security to overseas tools, robotics, and AI agents. The company has experienced highs, like its IPO, and lows, such as losing 80% of its revenue overnight. As one of China’s pioneering product managers in the internet era, Fu Sheng has been described by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun as “one of the most outstanding client-side masters in China.” However, he admits that over the past decade, Cheetah Mobile has not produced a product as groundbreaking as those of the PC or mobile era.

“It’s true that we haven’t delivered a hit product,” Fu Sheng candidly admitted. Addressing external expectations and doubts, he reflected, “There were times when I felt so burdened that I came to understand why people might feel like giving up.” However, he has since reached a state of mind where he believes, “Other people’s expectations have nothing to do with me,” and is now focused on “practical” transformation.

As a specific product strategy, he has rejected the 99% investor-driven enthusiasm for humanoid robots, instead applying robotics technology to create a commercially viable 15-kilogram carbon-fiber smart assistive wheelchair. This wheelchair enables navigation with centimeter-level precision.

Editorial Opinion

In the short term, as demonstrated by Cheetah Mobile’s push for full-scale AI adoption among employees, companies are likely to accelerate efforts to fundamentally rethink organizational structures and talent evaluation criteria. The company’s approach of mandating AI usage within administrative departments could serve as a useful model for other organizations that have been slower to adopt AI outside their development teams. The emergence of a 14-year-old hackathon champion underscores how democratized access to AI tools is eroding entry barriers previously determined by years of experience, potentially prompting a reevaluation of age-based hiring standards.

From a long-term perspective, Fu Sheng’s views on the decline of academic credentials and the need to reconstruct the educational system seem increasingly relevant. In an era where the cost of acquiring knowledge is approaching zero, traditional education models based on uniformity are becoming unsustainable. However, whether AI can substitute for fundamental educational functions like fostering critical thinking and creativity remains uncertain. The focus will likely shift to how education policies worldwide, including in countries like Japan, adapt to this changing landscape. The editorial team does not fully endorse Fu Sheng’s assertion that “experience no longer holds value.”

References

• Huxiu — Published on 2026-07-02