2026 AI Kickoff Conversation: The Year of R | A Conversation with Yusen Dai of ZhenFund

🚥 Around this time last year, "Crossing" and "True Words" did a crossover episode. I had a year-opening conversation with Yusen Dai, managing partner at ZhenFund, where we boldly predicted that 2025 would be "AI's pivotal year" and "the Year of Agent." A year later, looking back, those calls largely played out — from DeepSeek to Manus, from the Ghibli moment to the Doubao phone assistant, AI applications truly hit an inflection point.

We're back this year!

I've also taken on a new role: I'm now a Venture Partner at ZhenFund, while continuing to engage with AI founders from the dual perspective of a content creator and angel investor — observing, thinking, and having conversations on the front lines.

This time Yusen and I talked for over two hours, ranging from the internship email Xing Wang once wrote me, to Yiming Zhang muttering about optimizing those dozen-odd seconds while his code compiled; from the investment thesis of "how to find Yao Ming in the AI era," to the resilience founders need most; from the loneliness of being a #1, to the happiness of being a #2.

🟢 Most anticipated: Yusen's forecast for 2026 — he proposes that next year will be AI's "Year of R," with the following three R's becoming the industry's focal points:

Return (commercial payoff): As investment scales up, people will pay more attention to real returns from AI. Quality of growth matters more than speed of growth.

Research (frontier research): Current AI research paradigms are hitting bottlenecks; new breakthroughs are needed to unlock the next phase.

Remember (user memory): Memory will become a key differentiator for AI applications. Proactive Agent could represent a 10x opportunity.

Finally, we also shared our happiness scores for the year, our top AI products, favorite podcasts, and the books that helped us temporarily forget about AI.

We hope this conversation gives you something to think about. If you're building in AI, or have an idea that excites you, we'd love to chat.

📒 The transcript will be published soon on the @十字路口Crossing WeChat account.

🟢 00:02 Revisiting 2025

Last year, we said 2025 would be "the Year of Agent." Time to check our answer.

Last year, we argued ChatGPT wasn't AI's iPhone moment — we were still in the BlackBerry era. What about now?

The Ghibli moment happened this year? Feels like ages ago.

The Year of Agent call holds up, but "Year One" means this won't be solved in a single year — Karpathy called it "Decades of Agent."

How's the Doubao phone assistant?

🟢 11:49 What's the next capability unlock?

Agentic abilities have only reached 10-20% unlock. At 80%, AI will be capable of vastly more.

Multimodal fusion is the next big shift.

There's a benchmark called Zero Bench — the strongest models currently score 5, but in a year might hit 60-80.

Elon Musk once said: humans are basically machines that constantly receive visual input.

🟢 14:55 Has the "phase transition" happened?

AI capability is like boiling water: before 100°C you can only make coffee; at 100°C you suddenly unlock the steam engine.

AutoGPT in 2023 was a concept; Manus in 2025 is a product with genuinely great UX — the difference between them is water temperature.

Ilya said AI has scaling periods and research periods; paradigm breakthroughs are what let you keep heating the water.

🟢 17:45 Recently exciting products

Yusen: Typeless — not just voice input; it learns how you speak differently in WeChat versus Lark.

Doubao phone assistant: still in preview, but the first time I felt AI could actually help you complete a task with real degrees of freedom.

Honestly, the excitement feels lower than late last year — last year was a massive wave crashing in; this year feels more like evolution from 1 to 10.

Koji: My heart-flutter product of the year: Sunday — the first robot that made me want to bring it home.

🟢 26:39 Koji's "Wudaokou Stories"

"The first email from Xing Wang" — Koji reads the letter

What did Xing Wang say to Koji, pointing at the Wudaokou intersection?

Yiming Zhang, back when he still wrote code: compilation took a dozen seconds. While others spaced out browsing the web, Yiming muttered: what can I do with these ten-plus seconds?

Picasso said, "When art critics get together, they talk about form, structure, and meaning. When artists get together, they talk about where to buy cheap turpentine."

🟢 39:24 How would a Xing Wang or Yiming Zhang of the AI era be different?

The "Tao" of entrepreneurship doesn't change: learning ability, leadership, innovation, willpower.

But the "Shu" keeps upgrading: 20 years ago it was Copy to China, 10 years ago it was China-adapted models, now it's global from day one, world-first.

🟢 44:21 Navigating entrepreneurship and investment without a map

What's the same about 2009 and today? Everyone senses opportunity, but nobody knows the answer.

Two things that definitely won't be wrong: take action + go where excellent people cluster.

The Walmart founder's kids dreaded road trips with Dad — because in every small town, Dad had to stop and examine supermarket shelves.

Project direction is hard to judge, but founder quality is relatively easier to assess.

🟢 51:46 How do you find Yao Ming in the AI era?

If Yao Ming is in the room, you won't miss him. But the NBA also has players under 5'4".

Resilience matters more than ever: faster iteration in the AI era means more frequent failure.

You need independent judgment on technology trajectories: build what the tech can support in 6-12 months, to be a pioneer rather than a martyr.

Zhilin Yang in 2023 already judged long context to be crucial; Xiaohong saw the Agent opportunity because he built an AI browser first.

The AI table deals 10-20 cards a year — missing with one hand is normal, just play the next card.

🟢 01:01:29 Advice for founders who want to come on the podcast

You don't need to package yourself as successful, or appear smart.

The real tragedy isn't saying something wrong — it's building something that nobody knows about, nobody discusses, nobody cares about.

Media needs good content; good content = interesting + useful + resonant.

🟢 01:06:43 Entrepreneurship vs. investing: two completely different lifestyles

What's the investor job like?

Entrepreneurship: going extremely deep on one thing. Investing: knowing a little about many things.

Entrepreneurship has a progress bar but is exhausting; investing has no progress bar but is anxiety-inducing.

Don't take what investors say too seriously — if they really knew, they might not be investors.

🟢🟢🟢 01:11:08 [Major] 2026 AI: Year of R

Yusen's framework for the year: three R's will define 2026's AI trends, making it The Year of R

🟢 Return (commercial payoff)

For the past three years, people traded on the I in ROI (Investment). Next year, more attention goes to R (Return).

ChatGPT subscription price hikes are hard: intelligence that sold for $200 last year now sells for $20.

What used to be valuable becomes less so — AI won't earn programmers' salaries; it will devalue programming itself.

Silicon Valley is already shifting: investors increasingly care about gross margin, retention, and cash flow, not just growth.

🟢 Research (frontier research)

Ilya says we're back in a research phase; Demis says we need 1-2 more breakthroughs to reach AGI.

New trend in Silicon Valley: investing in Neo Labs, hoping they explore research paths different from the leading model companies.

Thinking Machines Labs at $50 billion valuation exceeds the combined valuation of all Chinese generative AI startups.

🟢 Remember (user memory)

Memory is the key differentiator for AI applications; ChatGPT retention shows a smile curve.

I asked ChatGPT where to go for Spring Festival — its recommendations crushed Gemini's, because we'd been talking for three years.

Next step is Proactive Agent: a good assistant doesn't wait for the boss to ask, but proactively prepares the materials.

🟢 01:40:36 Our annual recommendations

AI product of the year?

Podcast of the year?

Book of the year?

2036 (ten years out) prediction essays

What's this year's happiness score?

🎉

🎉

🎉

Happy New Year, friends!

Drop a comment and tell us: what interesting AI products or stories did you come across this year? We'll randomly draw 10 winners for a New Year's gift: a "Hands Dirty" hoodie.

The design comes from one of Crossing's most popular guests: Vanessa, who joined us for "The AI Product Manager's Guide: Who Am I, Where Did I Come From, Where Am I Going | A Conversation with ByteDance AI Product Lead Vanessa, on Lessons from Interviewing 100 AI Product Managers."

"Get Your Hands Dirty" means, in the AI era, we encourage everyone to "get their hands dirty" and take action to build. It's a phrase Vanessa and I both love — it carries a particular romance in the AI era, representing that step from bystander to creator: not waiting for perfect preparation, not fearing chaos and uncertainty, but reaching in first and shaping a fuzzy idea into form.

Today, action itself is the barrier. Only when you truly start building does AI become real in your hands: a small tool, an automated workflow, a bit of trial and error — any of these can open new possibilities. This phrase reminds us: the future isn't thought up, it's made.

Subscribe to "Crossing": 🚦 We track the industry shifts and entrepreneurial opportunities brought by the new wave of AI technology.

🚦 "Crossing" is Steve Jobs' metaphor for Apple — standing at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, where great products are born. AI is transforming every industry. We seek out, interview, and bring together a new generation of AI founders and proactive actors in the AI era. Together with them, we explore and embrace the new changes and new possibilities.

👦🏻 Host Koji (WeChat: YuanchengYang): I founded Crossing, launched AI Hacker House as a community space for the new generation of AI founders, and serve as Venture Partner at ZhenFund. I believe technology, especially AI, represents the greatest value-creation opportunity of our generation. Koji's Jike, Koji's website

👧🏻 Host Ronghui: I co-founded Crossing, worked at a USD VC, and spent five years as a Silicon Valley correspondent, tracking technology development and business stories. Feel free to reach out and chat. Ronghui's Jike