Hong Kong firms lag mainland China on AI adoption amid legacy-system burden: Accenture

Hong Kong businesses are lagging behind their mainland Chinese peers in adopting artificial intelligence, as entrenched legacy systems and a risk-averse corporate mindset slow the city’s digital transition, according to a senior executive at consultancy Accenture.

Only 10 per cent of Hong Kong firms surveyed by Accenture had integrated generative AI across multiple business functions, compared with about 21 per cent of mainland enterprises, said Robert Hah, Hong Kong office lead at Accenture Greater China, in an interview with the South China Morning Post on Tuesday.

Mainland China’s rapid adoption of enterprise AI has been fuelled by falling model costs and a flourishing domestic developer ecosystem led by firms such as DeepSeek and Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.

Tech giants including Ant Group, Tencent Holdings, Alibaba and Baidu rushed to roll out enterprise-focused AI agents at this year’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai – the country’s top AI event – signalling a shift in the industry battleground from building foundation models to embedding AI directly into corporate workflows.

While mainland firms benefited from access to this expanding ecosystem, Hah said a “mindset shift” remained the key differentiator between the two markets.

Mainland companies were moving faster because of their willingness to “lean in and reinvent”, whereas Hong Kong’s entrenched IT infrastructure made local businesses hesitant to overhaul established operating models, Hah said.

“There are legacy infrastructures in place that may make it less meaningful or worthwhile to make a quick change right away,” Hah said, comparing the current gap to Hong Kong’s historically slower embrace of e-commerce relative to the mainland.

The divide underscores a growing challenge for Hong Kong as the local government pushes to position the city as a tech hub. Under its first five-year plan, Hong Kong has placed AI at the centre of efforts to upgrade its economy.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu recently pledged to pursue dual strategies of “AI for industries” and “industries for AI” to modernise traditional sectors while cultivating home-grown tech players. Planned initiatives include an “AI city brain” system to manage extreme weather events, major incidents and public order.

“Our industries will be more diversified, education enhanced, [the city] more international, and we will be a highly technologically empowered Hong Kong,” Lee said earlier this month.

Despite the policy push, the biggest barriers to AI deployment remained organisational rather than technological, Hah said. He cited a disconnect between companies’ broader business strategies and their AI plans, as well as persistent shortages of digital talent.

While 84 per cent of Hong Kong organisations surveyed said they intended to create entry-level jobs for “AI-fluent” talent, more than half reported they were struggling to find talent that could work with the technology.

To bridge this gap, companies needed to rethink jobs and workflows rather than just adding AI tools to existing processes, Hah said.

However, labour shortages and other economic pressures were expected to push Hong Kong firms to accelerate automation efforts, led by early adopters in financial services, banking and insurance, while retail, consumer goods and hospitality trailed behind, according to Hah.