Doubao Phone: Big Ambitions, Big Hurdles

ByteDance has collaborated with ZTE Nubia on a mobile phone engineering prototype nubia M153, which was unveiled on December 1st along with the technical preview version of Doubao Mobile Assistant, priced at 3,499 yuan. This model has been sold out on the official platform, and even on Xianyu, it is sold at a premium of over a thousand yuan. This model is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Extreme Edition mobile platform, which is currently the most advanced mobile chip platform in the Android camp. This move is to support AI operations and the simultaneous running of multiple applications.

The core highlight of this mobile phone lies in the Doubao Mobile Assistant it is equipped with. It has system permissions beyond those of ordinary applications and can simulate operations such as clicks and swipes, and automatically jump between multiple applications to complete tasks.

However, just one day later, users discovered a problem. According to the notice from the Doubao Mobile Assistant delivery team, when users use the Doubao Mobile Assistant to perform tasks on the Nubia M153 mobile phone, it will cause WeChat to exit abnormally and even prevent users from logging in.

01

Different Reactions from All Parties

This incident has triggered different reactions from App, AI, and mobile phone enterprises.

A senior App industry insider told ShuZhi Frontline that it is highly likely that this has triggered WeChat's security risk control system. Similar attempts by ByteDance and Nubia mobile phones may raise several issues:

First, user security issues. Once the mobile phone assistant can obtain system-level permissions, it will raise users' security concerns. Second, the fairness mechanism. "If the intelligent agent is very powerful and replaces humans to register for appointments or grab tickets, will it bring us back to the era when people could only buy tickets through scalpers?" Third, what impact will it have on the entire mobile phone and application ecosystem if a national-level application enters the mobile phone market?

Previously, WeChat clearly stated that it would not enter the mobile phone market. ByteDance has also repeatedly denied self-developing mobile phones and emphasized opening up its AI capabilities to mobile phone manufacturers. However, in the eyes of some people, Nubia's cooperation this time is similar to acting as an OEM for Doubao Mobile.

From the perspective of the artificial intelligence industry, the cooperation between ByteDance and Nubia mobile phones represents a general trend.

A senior artificial intelligence insider told ShuZhi Frontline that one of the most important changes in this wave of artificial intelligence is to change the user interaction interface. Previously, we needed to open apps to call a taxi or order food. But in fact, these are unnecessary. Now, large models can "understand human language", and we have entered the era of natural interaction interfaces. AI personal assistants can help call a taxi, order food, and even make decisions on your behalf if you forget to order food during a meeting and have hypoglycemia. This is a good thing for consumers.

"This transition period may take 5 to 10 years, and it is not excluded that some events in between will accelerate the change." Currently, this evolution is still in progress, and there are still "various collisions" among large enterprises. In the future, the winner will actually take on the role of the 'intelligent assistant operator'. As for issues such as security and compliance, they will be resolved as the industry develops.

As early as the beginning of last year, a large enterprise's AI insider told ShuZhi Frontline that "in the future, we will have fewer and fewer apps, and there will be a trend of de-appification."

From the perspective of mobile phone enterprises, mobile phone app services will ultimately be componentized and atomized, and be scheduled by the mobile phone enterprise's AI assistant.

Overall, all parties hope to have control over the intelligent power in their own hands.

02

Behind Doubao's Battle

Previously, some giants either had mobile phones, AI assistants, or both, but the scope of their attempts was limited.

A senior industry insider gave an example. Xiaomi's mobile phone assistant, "Xiaomi AI", can purchase products in the Xiaomi Mall. "Because it is its own platform, it can obtain more permissions and allow the mobile phone assistant to directly make one-click purchases. However, Xiaomi Assistant has not attempted to make purchases on Taobao." From the perspective of network security, I think there will also be problems with this approach. Users don't know how many of their permissions have been transferred. When enterprises do this, they need to obtain users' right to know, right to consent, and right to traceability.

Last year, Tencent also held a seminar with the theme of "Is cloud AI safer, or is edge AI safer", which attracted the attention of mobile phone manufacturers because mobile phone manufacturers' AI is considered edge AI. However, Tencent didn't take many subsequent actions in this regard. At the beginning of this year, it drove the traffic of Tencent Yuanbao Mobile Assistant with the help of DeepSeek, but it was still limited to the app.

Previously, Huawei promoted atomized functions on its mobile phones. However, the components called by Huawei mobile phones were all pre - cooperated between Huawei and app enterprises, and did not directly bypass the apps.

This time, Doubao has broken these balances. The industry believes that this style is very "ByteDance" - like. Without the knowledge of giants like WeChat, it used AI to operate WeChat, which led to WeChat being forced to exit. Doubao wants to play the role of a more underlying intelligent "dispatcher", bringing the core competition from the previous app entry point directly to a higher - dimensional competition.

In the technical preview of the Nubia M153, the following scenarios were mentioned: When chatting on WeChat, it can read the chat context to generate reply content, and users can directly send it after clicking to confirm; another scenario is that after the Doubao Assistant is awakened, it will appear in the form of a half - screen card overlay without interrupting the current WeChat chat interface, allowing users to view and confirm the AI - generated reply content without exiting the chat window.

Just one day after the preview of the Nubia M153, on December 2nd, users discovered a problem. According to the notice from the Doubao Mobile Assistant delivery team, when users use the Doubao Mobile Assistant to perform tasks on the Nubia M153 mobile phone, it will cause WeChat to exit abnormally and even prevent users from logging in.

Several senior insiders told ShuZhi Frontline that the forced exit of WeChat is not only related to the fact that the Doubao Assistant deeply intervenes in the system and simulates manual operations, triggering WeChat's security risk control system, but also closely related to the future competition among large enterprises for the role of the 'mobile phone intelligent assistant operator'.

Large enterprises are still in the process of collision. However, a senior insider told ShuZhi Frontline that in fact, the future decision - making power should be in the hands of consumers. "If you trust mobile phone enterprises, Doubao, or Tencent, you can choose the AI assistant of that party." Some people also said that from the perspective of network security, Doubao and Nubia need to obtain users' right to know, right to consent, and right to traceability when doing this.

This article is from the WeChat official account "ShuZhi Frontline" (ID: szqx1991), author: Zhao Yanqiu, editor: Niu Hui, published by 36Kr with authorization.