Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: Promoting the deep integration and application of artificial intelligence in small and medium-sized enterprises to improve the supply quality and efficiency of digital transformation

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on July 27, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the “Small, Quick and Easy” Digital Product and Service Cultivation Guidelines (2026 Edition). Among them, it is proposed to deepen the application of artificial intelligence. Encourage products to deeply integrate artificial intelligence technology, gradually evolve from logical reasoning and assisted decision-making based on rules or models to intelligent decision-making with multi-modal perception, prediction, and autonomous execution, and promote the deep integration and application of artificial intelligence in small and medium-sized enterprises.

Strengthen data fusion analysis. Products are encouraged to focus on key business links such as R&D and design, manufacturing, and operation management, and integrate the application of big data analysis technology to support the transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises to a data-driven operating model by connecting or collecting the existing business data of enterprises for modeling and analysis.

The original text is as follows:

Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Issuing the “Small, Quick and Easy” Digital Product and Service Cultivation Guidelines (2026 Edition)

The competent departments of small and medium-sized enterprises in each province, autonomous region, municipality directly under the Central Government and planned separate municipalities, and the Xinjiang Construction Corps:

In order to thoroughly implement a series of decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to accelerate the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises and implement the key tasks of the “Special Action Plan for the Digital Empowerment of Small and Medium Enterprises (2025-2027)”, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized the preparation of the “Small, Fast and Easy” Digital Product and Service Cultivation Guidelines (2026 Edition). It is now being issued to you. Please do a good job in product cultivation, supply and demand docking, standard development and application according to actual local conditions, etc., to focus on improving the supply quality and efficiency of digital transformation, guide digital service providers to focus on the new development needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, strengthen the adaptation of supply and demand, and optimize and improve the service supply ecosystem to promote the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises.

“Small, Quick and Easy” Digital Product and Service Cultivation Guidelines (2026 Edition)

In order to thoroughly implement the series of decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to accelerate the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, implement the key tasks of the “Special Action Plan for the Digital Empowerment of Small and Medium Enterprises (2025-2027)” (Joint Enterprise of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (2024) No. 239), focus on improving the quality and efficiency of digital transformation services for small and medium-sized enterprises, standardize and cultivate “miniaturization, acceleration, weight and precision” (hereinafter referred to as “small, fast and light”) digital products and services, continuously reduce the digital transformation costs of small and medium-sized enterprises, improve the effectiveness of transformation, and promote deep transformation. Lightweight” Digital Product and Service Development Guidelines (2026 Edition)”.

I. Scope of application

This document is mainly aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises, digital service providers and local SME authorities. It aims to guide service providers to closely focus on the digital transformation needs of small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of innovation, quality improvement, cost reduction, efficiency, green and safety, etc., promote the adaptation of digital products and services to the supply and demand of digital products and services, accelerate the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, and provide reference guidelines for local SME authorities to select and cultivate “small, quick and accurate” digital products and services.

II. General Requirements

Adhere to demand-driven and performance-oriented. Guided by the digital transformation needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, it closely follows the pain points of transformation, guides the continuous cultivation of products in the dimensions of miniaturization, speed, weight and precision, and promotes the active transformation and willingness of small and medium-sized enterprises to transform with high quality supply. Adhere to adapting to local conditions and classifying and cultivating. Encourage local authorities to refine cultivation standards according to local conditions based on the actual situation of digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises in key industries, establish classification and hierarchical cultivation systems, and promote continuous iterative optimization of “small, quick and accurate” digital products and services. Adhere to government guidance and multi-party collaboration. Strengthen policy coordination and resource coordination, and accelerate the construction of a digital transformation service supply ecosystem for small and medium-sized enterprises with multi-party participation and complementary advantages.

III. Cultivation direction

(1) “Miniaturization”: scene focus, knowledge intensive “miniaturization” emphasizes deep scene cultivation, knowledge intensity, and function focus. Digital products should focus on core application scenarios in segmented industries, avoid “big and complete” functionality, and rely on industry knowledge accumulation to provide highly suitable products and solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises.

1. Deeply cultivate segmented scenarios. The functional design closely matches the requirements of typical application scenarios at different levels of digitalization in the “SME Digitalization Level Assessment Index” and the digital intelligence transformation scenario map of key industries, giving priority to meeting the digital transformation needs of key business links of small and medium-sized enterprises, and achieving single-point breakthroughs and improvements.

2. Accumulate industry knowledge. Build an industrial mechanism model or industry knowledge base for industry segments, cover core processes, and support the generation of models, processes, algorithms, forms and other functions suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises through simple parameter configuration to effectively meet the individual needs of small and medium-sized enterprises.

3. Control resource consumption. Product function design should focus on the core business scenarios of small and medium-sized enterprises in segmented industries to avoid excessive software and hardware resource requirements and increased operation and maintenance difficulties due to redundant modules, effectively control resource consumption, and adapt to the general software and hardware configuration level of small and medium-sized enterprises.

(2) “Acceleration”: Agile deployment and efficient service

“Acceleration” emphasizes low threshold deployment, short cycle launch, and high efficiency services. Digital products should shorten the implementation cycle from procurement to put into use, and be equipped with a complete training and after-sales service system to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises can quickly get started and continue to receive timely responses

1. Streamline deployment and implementation. Product deployment and implementation methods should aim for rapid application, and encourage the adoption of models such as modular selection, lightweight deployment, cloud services, and out-of-the-box use to reduce the deployment cycle and reduce the transformation requirements for existing IT infrastructure of small and medium-sized enterprises.

2. Reduce the difficulty of operation. The product operation interface should be simple and easy to use, fully consider the cognitive habits of small and medium-sized enterprises, and improve the ease of learning and use of the product. After a short period of training, SME employees can operate it without having a strong IT professional background.

3. Improve the training system. Establish a systematic and standardized training service system around the product to provide free training courses, courseware, and enterprise entry training services for small and medium-sized enterprises to help SME employees quickly grasp product operation requirements.

4. Improve after-sales guarantee. Encourage the provision of free after-sales service for a certain period of time and 7×24 hour immediate response service, clarify the severity level of the problem and the timeliness commitment corresponding to each level, and ensure that the demands of small and medium-sized enterprises are responded to in a timely manner and handled efficiently.

(3) “Lightweight”: open, compatible, flexible expansion

“Lightweight” emphasizes high compatibility, customization, and easy migration. Digital products should support integration with other platform systems and cross-platform data migration, avoid “data silos” and “vendor lock-up”, and achieve flexible expansion and continuous upgrading.

1. Support third-party compatibility. Products should reserve standardized open interfaces or provide lightweight integrated solutions to support good compatibility and quick connection with mainstream digital products from third parties to avoid “data silos”.

2. Support low-threshold secondary development. Products are encouraged to support small and medium-sized enterprises to achieve secondary development according to their individual needs through low-code or no-code methods such as graphical dragging and form configuration, and reduce the technical threshold and cost of customized development.

3. Ensure convenient data migration. The product should support seamless switching and efficient data flow between multiple platforms (systems) through standardized data protocols and lightweight migration tools to avoid data loss and business interruption during the migration process.

(4) “Precision”: effectiveness orientation, customer satisfaction

“Precision” emphasizes quantifiable results, perceptible value, and matching needs. Digital products should accurately respond to the core demands of small and medium-sized enterprises in innovation, quality improvement, cost reduction, efficiency, green, safety, etc., and continue to be optimized and upgraded based on user satisfaction feedback.

1. Focus on core value creation. Focusing on the pain points, difficulties, and blockages faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in the specialized and new development of small and medium-sized enterprises, perceptible and quantifiable practical results are achieved in accelerating enterprise innovation, improving product quality, reducing operating costs, improving production efficiency, and promoting green and low carbon through product services.

2. Establish a closed loop of user feedback. Service providers are encouraged to pay attention to SME usage evaluations and feedback, build promotion channels and product ecosystems based on industrial Internet platforms, and continuously improve and optimize based on feedback data to ensure dynamic matching of product functions with enterprise needs.

3. Verify the long-term value of the market. Guide service providers to pay attention to product market share, user reviews and repurchases, and test the service value of products based on customer satisfaction.

(5) “Digital intelligence”: data-driven, intelligent efficiency

“Digital intelligence” emphasizes data integration and intelligence to increase efficiency. Digital products should conform to the development trend of artificial intelligence, actively integrate artificial intelligence technology, dig deeper into the value of industry data elements, deepen the innovative application of artificial intelligence, and effectively empower small and medium-sized enterprises to upgrade intelligently.

1. Strengthen data fusion analysis. Products are encouraged to focus on key business links such as R&D and design, manufacturing, and operation management, and integrate the application of big data analysis technology to support the transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises to a data-driven operating model by connecting or collecting the existing business data of enterprises for modeling and analysis.

2. Deepen the application of artificial intelligence. Encourage products to deeply integrate artificial intelligence technology, gradually evolve from logical reasoning and assisted decision-making based on rules or models to intelligent decision-making with multi-modal perception, prediction, and autonomous execution, and promote the deep integration and application of artificial intelligence in small and medium-sized enterprises.

(6) Common basic requirements

In addition to the above five dimensions of cultivation, “small, quick and easy” digital products and services should also meet the following requirements:

1. Safe, stable and reliable. The product should have network security, information security and data security protection capabilities to meet the basic security protection needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. Encourage the timely investigation and repair of security flaws through security tests and evaluations by third-party professional organizations, ensure product safety and reliability, and ensure the data and business security of small and medium-sized enterprises.

2. The price is reasonable and transparent. Service providers are encouraged to comprehensively consider product development costs, follow-up service investment, and expected benefits brought to enterprises, scientifically formulate product and service fee standards and actively publicize them, put an end to hidden charges and bundled sales, and ensure that prices are consistent with quality and price, and that fees are fair and reasonable.

IV. Organization and implementation

(1) Establishing a standardized selection and cultivation mechanism

In accordance with the clear cultivation direction of these guidelines, each region can formulate implementation rules for the selection and cultivation of “small, quick and easy” digital products and services according to local conditions, and establish a “enterprise application - expert review - storage cultivation - dynamic evaluation - merit-based promotion” workflow.

(2) Implement dynamic classification and hierarchical management

All regions are encouraged to establish classification and hierarchical cultivation systems according to product application industries, application scenarios, product categories and capability levels, and implement hierarchical cultivation and dynamic management. Service providers are encouraged to rely on industrial Internet platforms to settle user needs, accelerate product function iteration and service optimization, continue to expand product coverage and application depth, and continuously improve the quality and efficiency of products and services.

(3) Promoting the sharing of high-quality resources across regions

Relying on carriers such as digital transformation service platforms and local service platforms and promotion centers for small and medium-sized enterprises across the country, we will build a “small, quick and light” high-quality resource pool for digital products, accelerate promotion through online publicity and offline experiences, promote the circulation and sharing of high-quality products across regions, and reduce the cost of selection and risk of trial and error for small and medium-sized enterprises.

This article was selected from the “Ministry of Industry and Information Technology” official website, Zhitong Finance Editor: Jiang Yuanhua.