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RESEARCH REPORT

Lead through value migration

Accenture China Digital Transformation Index 2026

5-MINUTE READ

August 20, 2026

In brief

  • The 2026 China Digital Transformation Index (DTI) rose by 10 points year-on-year, with the sharpest gains in three areas: growth, manufacturing and digital core.

  • Most organizations have become better prepared for today’s competition; few, however, are prepared for tomorrow’s challenges.

  • Based on what leading companies are doing today, we believe Chinese enterprises need to make three shifts to win the next round of competition.

Value is migrating toward future-focused businesses

Over the past decade, $27 trillion in enterprise value changed hands globally. The market has become increasingly future-focused, as reflected in rising EV-to-EBIT ratios. Investors are increasingly willing to pay a premium for the ability to keep creating value in the future; not for what enterprises earn today.

The pace of value migration has doubled in the age of AI. Of the $27 trillion in enterprise value that migrated over the past decade, nearly one-third occurred since 2022. From 2022 to 2024, value migrated twice as fast as it did before the AI era.
The pace of value migration has doubled in the age of AI. Of the $27 trillion in enterprise value that migrated over the past decade, nearly one-third occurred since 2022. From 2022 to 2024, value migrated twice as fast as it did before the AI era.

Value is flowing to those who can reinvent how they operate, raise the value density of what they do and capture growth across multiple markets.

Enterprise intelligence is surging but most Chinese enterprises aren’t ready to migrate value

Generative AI and agentic AI have driven the strongest year-on-year improvement in the Digital Transformation Index (DTI) since the research began. The 2026 China DTI rose by 10 points year-on-year, with the sharpest gains in three areas: growth, manufacturing and digital core.

Accenture’s China Digital Transformation Index climbed 10 points year-on-year, rising from 49 in 2025 to 59 in 2026.
Accenture’s China Digital Transformation Index climbed 10 points year-on-year, rising from 49 in 2025 to 59 in 2026.

Most organizations have become better prepared for today’s competition; few, however, are prepared for tomorrow’s challenges. Only 10% of enterprises show early strength in future capabilities, which require turning AI investments into capabilities that can actively capture value migration.

88%

Advanced AI adoption has moved beyond the pilot stage, from 46% in 2025 to 88% in 2026 (+42pp).

14%

But the share achieving significant value has increased only marginally, from 9% to 14% (+5pp).

Inside the leaders’ playbook

Leading enterprises are rebuilding growth engines around three decisive capabilities.

Leading enterprises are building AI as an enterprise capability—across strategy, technology, knowledge, operating model, and governance—to embed AI into how the organization operates, decides, and innovates, enabling trusted AI at scale.

Leading enterprises make this leap through four shifts in AI-enabled value creation: from selling products to outcomes, from managing to monetizing complexity, from usable data to trusted decisions and from internal capabilities to agentic networks.

Winning globally starts with winning locally. As Agentic AI reshapes how brands are discovered, evaluated and chosen, three strategic moves can help Chinese companies turn their strengths into sustained market influence.

Putting strategy into action

Make AI your new DNA

Enterprise reinvention now depends on embedding AI into decision-making, operations and innovation as a scalable, evolving capability.

Rewire growth creation

Enterprises create advantage when AI resets the value equation, generating higher returns from existing assets and capabilities.

Go multipolar. Win big.

AI is becoming the critical lever that lets Chinese enterprises stay locally rooted, globally coordinated and intelligently responsive.