When a piece of market-moving news breaks, how quickly should an investor decide whether to adjust their holdings? For most, the answer is "the faster, the better." What they truly need isn't a lengthy report delivered hours later, but an immediately accessible analytical framework—one that lets them think like an analyst, quickly dissecting the transmission chain, testing assumptions, and forming judgments the moment market conditions shift. China Merchants Securities Co.,Ltd. (ASX: 600999) is actively building an AI-powered research institute to explore a new paradigm for sell-side research in the artificial intelligence era, and it has unveiled its first milestone: the intelligent research platform "Xiaoyan Work." This platform converts the institute's long-accumulated data, frameworks, and analytical methods into on-demand "Skills" that clients can invoke directly—so they no longer simply wait for analyst reports but can open the platform and follow professional reasoning processes to conduct research themselves. According to reports, the platform plans to roll out a first batch of professional Skills covering multiple high-frequency research scenarios. Some Skills have already been made available to several asset management institutions for trial use and have received positive feedback. Moving forward, after validation in real research production environments and the implementation of effective governance controls, the platform will gradually open these capabilities to a broader base of professional clients.

The core competitive moat is not the underlying model but the research institute's deep, sustained accumulation. As general-purpose large language models become ubiquitous, simply integrating a model does not create a professional edge. Clients care more about what data AI accesses, which frameworks it applies, what standards it executes against, and who ultimately takes responsibility for judgments. China Merchants Securities Co.,Ltd. has already amassed a vast repository of investment research materials, over 300,000 data indicators, and more than 1,000 research frameworks, forming what it calls the "Three Research Libraries": research documents, proprietary datasets, and professional frameworks. Xiaoyan Work transforms these assets into scenario-specific, professional research Skills. Each research-oriented Skill is typically built jointly by analysts and technical teams, who define data sources, task steps, analytical frameworks, and verification requirements—ensuring that research methodologies are executed with consistency, can be reused repeatedly, and are subject to continuous improvement. Several dedicated Skills are already in production, covering areas such as data extraction, company and industry research, macro strategy, fund research, and multi-asset allocation.

Before any client-facing Skill is released, it must first prove itself in real research production, not just in a polished demo. Skills that merely look intelligent in a demonstration environment are insufficient; they must withstand the rigors of actual research tasks. Xiaoyan Work has been integrated into China Merchants Securities Co.,Ltd.'s internal research workflow across search, reading, writing, and review stages. It is being tested in realistic scenarios such as data extraction, company and industry analysis, and assisted proofreading. Every Skill intended for professional clients must pass stringent checks: whether documents can be located accurately, whether data can be validated, whether processes remain traceable, whether anomalies are flagged, and whether critical steps can be subject to human review. This is both the product development path for Xiaoyan Work and a core requirement for the quality of China Merchants Securities Co.,Ltd.'s professional research services.

Professional research capabilities only create real value when they reach clients at the moment of need. Xiaoyan Work currently supports a coordinated multi-device architecture—including web, desktop, and mobile endpoints—so clients can flexibly choose their preferred interface based on their working environment and conduct research whenever and wherever necessary. China Merchants Securities Co.,Ltd. is also exploring system-level integrations, custom Skill development, and private deployment options to better align its proprietary data, research methodologies, and platform capabilities with client workflows. As the client-facing productized embodiment of its "AI Research Institute," Xiaoyan Work represents a concrete step in the company's broader strategy to become an "AI securities firm." What it aims to achieve goes beyond simply enabling AI to participate in research; it is about making the hard-won professional expertise of the research institute accessible to clients in a more timely, sustainable, and actionable manner. Analysts define the depth of research—AI ensures that depth arrives exactly when clients need it.