China might have just shipped the kind of “AI phone” many people thought Apple would launch first.
ByteDance’s 豆包 (Doubao) has worked with ZTE to put a system-level AI assistant on a nubia M153 engineering phone in China. It sells for 3,499 RMB and gives the AI deep access to the device, so it can read what is on the screen and actually tap, swipe and type across different apps for you. Instead of you jumping between Meituan, Taobao, JD, WeChat and banking or content apps, 豆包 can help do things like cross-app price comparisons, collecting information, or converting and sharing documents from one app to another.
In many ways, this matches the story Apple told with Apple Intelligence: an assistant built into the operating system, aware of context across apps rather than just a chatbot sitting in one place. The way each company is moving, however, is quite different. Apple is rolling things out slowly with a strong privacy pitch, focusing on writing tools, summaries, smarter notifications and a better Siri, and keeping automation within tight limits. 豆包 is much more aggressive, acting like a full agent that literally operates third‑party apps through system-level control, which is closer to what many people imagine when they say, “I want AI to use my phone for me.”
The reaction inside China shows both excitement and concern. The limited nubia batch sold out quickly, phones started reselling at a premium, and “AI phone” became a hot theme in local tech and stock discussions. At the same time, big platforms are pushing back. Some users say their WeChat accounts were forced offline and banking apps showed stronger risk warnings when they detected AI controlling the device, which triggered arguments about who should really hold the keys to system-level control.
There is also a more uncomfortable point: the data environment. Even with new privacy rules, China still allows more cross‑app profiling, tight ecosystem integration and opaque data flows than GDPR‑style markets. That reality makes it much easier for a system-level AI to read context across apps and “drive” the phone on the user’s behalf, which speeds up innovation in these agent-style experiences but also raises new questions about consent, transparency and long‑term trust.
Seen this way, 豆包手机助手 is not just a cool new feature. It is an early, real-world test of what an agent-first smartphone might look like. In some sense, it is showing one possible future version of the Apple Intelligence vision, just playing out faster, with more friction, and inside China’s very different mix of super‑apps, banks and data norms.
https://lnkd.in/gzps7SPe
#Doubao #豆包手机助手 #AIphone #AI智能手机 #AgenticAI #MobileAI #OnDeviceAI #AppleIntelligence #ChinaTech #SuperApps #FutureOfMobile #UserPrivacy #DataGovernance
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