In order to solve the problems of emphasis on ex ante approvals and neglect of supervision and services in state-assets supervision, the Party and the State propose to build a state-assets regulation system focusing on capital management. This requires the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) to transform from the traditional regulation model of focusing on ex ante approvals to emphasis on both supervision and services. Theoretically, digital intelligence is an important means of realizing the transformation, which helps to not only reduce the degree of information asymmetry between the SASAC and SOEs to strengthen the supervision function, but also increase the information advantage of the SASAC to stimulate the counseling function.

Using the SASAC’s implementation of the online supervision system as a setting, this paper analyzes and tests for the first time the role and mechanism of digital intelligence construction on the transformation of the function of SASAC. The study finds that: (1) After the introduction of online supervision system, M&A performance significantly improves. (2) Strengthening SASAC’s supervision function and stimulating SASAC’s counseling function are both important mechanisms. (3) There is a complementary relationship between digital intelligence supervision and digital transformation of treated companies. (4) Digital intelligence supervision significantly enhances the market value of treated companies.

The contributions of this paper are as follows: First, it proposes and tests the idea that digital intelligence can increase the information advantage of the supervisory authority and thus stimulate the new functions, enriching the research related to digital intelligence supervision. Second, it finds that the online supervision system improves M&A performance with investors’ information set unchanged, providing a new research scenario for verifying the theoretical viewpoint of “learning from oneself”. Third, it provides theoretical references and improvement directions for the policy practice of promoting the transformation of SASAC’s supervision function through digital intelligence construction.