Doubao Mobile Makes a Comeback: From "Being Besieged" to "Countering the Siege" | Exclusive Report from Intelligence Emergence

Text by | Qiu Xiaofen

Edited by | Su Jianxun

On January 26th, at Tencent's annual meeting, Pony Ma rarely commented on Doubao Phone. He straightforwardly stated that Tencent opposes transmitting users' phone screens to the cloud, as it is "extremely unsafe and irresponsible."

In response to this comment, Doubao Phone quickly issued a statement, saying that it will strictly abide by user authorization, and cloud processing follows the principle of "no storage, no training."

Pony Ma's comment also revealed Doubao Phone's previous pain points. In December 2025, just one day after its release, Doubao Phone, a product under ByteDance, faced a severe "encirclement and suppression." Its AI Agent touched on the traffic and core data of major super apps, triggering a joint blockade by Internet companies including Meituan, WeChat, and Alibaba, almost paralyzing its AI functions.

Despite this, the story of Doubao Phone is not over yet.

According to exclusive information obtained by Intelligent Emergence, ByteDance launched the official version project of Doubao Phone Assistant at the end of 2025. The new phone is expected to be released in the mid - to late - second quarter of 2026.

Some supply - chain insiders said that ByteDance has high expectations for the new phone, which are much higher than those for the first - generation test version. In terms of the cooperation model, the second - generation Doubao Phone will still cooperate with ZTE Nubia. ZTE is responsible for the hardware, and Doubao is responsible for the AI.

As of now, ByteDance has not responded to this.

How to avoid being "encircled and suppressed" again will be a key issue for the second - generation hardware products.

Intelligent Emergence learned that the Doubao Phone team has been negotiating with most mainstream app manufacturers. Currently, it has reached agreements on some commonly used permissions with some Internet companies (such as those in the taxi - hailing, food - delivery, and ticket - booking industries).

Negotiating for permissions does not mean that Doubao Phone will abandon its original system - level GUI Agent approach. (Note from the author: The GUI Agent approach of Doubao Phone essentially allows the AI to understand the phone screen and simulate click operations like a human by obtaining advanced permissions of the phone operating system, achieving the effect of "automatically operating the phone." Therefore, it does not require app manufacturers to open API interface authorization.)

A person in the mobile phone industry analyzed to Intelligent Emergence that this is also a game strategy. When the first - generation Doubao Phone did not have the bargaining power to negotiate with Internet companies, it first used the system - level GUI Agent approach as a prototype to bypass the problem of interface authorization.

In addition to developing its own hardware, Doubao Phone is also trying a two - pronged approach, contacting various mobile phone manufacturers for different forms of cooperation. Intelligent Emergence learned that the cooperation models negotiated by Doubao Phone with mobile phone manufacturers mainly fall into two categories:

For large mobile phone manufacturers with well - developed self - research ecosystems (models, computing power, entrances, and operating systems), such as OPPO, vivo, and Honor, the cooperation model with Doubao still focuses on the technical level, including model inter - connection and invocation, or modular products such as the "Doubao Input Method."

These mobile phone manufacturers will never give up their core entrances. In the future, they will still retain their respective voice entrances at the application level, such as Xiaobu (OPPO) and Lanxin Xiaov (vivo).

However, for mobile phone manufacturers with a low market share in China, classified as "others," such as Transsion, Meizu, and Lenovo, Doubao Phone adopts a more aggressive negotiation strategy, directly embedding a Doubao AI entrance in their phones, similar to the cooperation model between SERES and Huawei.

A person familiar with the situation at ByteDance said that in terms of the business model, mobile phone manufacturers need to pay technology authorization fees and AI service subscription fees.

From making a prototype phone with Nubia to forming an alliance with a group of mobile phone manufacturers through software entrances, Doubao's breakthrough strategy in the mobile phone field is obvious.

Ren Ju, the initiator of the edge - side intelligent agent manufacturer "Wanxiang Zhiwei," analyzed to Intelligent Emergence that the reason why the first - generation Doubao Phone was "encircled and suppressed" so quickly was that the user base was not large, and it was strongly bound to a specific Nubia model. "It was very easy for Internet companies to ban it. They only needed to target the model and conduct small - scale targeted attacks."

He said that if the Doubao Phone Assistant enters a large number of phones in the form of software, is not bound to specific models, and the user base grows, it will not be so easy to "encircle and suppress."

For a large number of "other" mobile phone manufacturers, the addition of Doubao AI also provides the possibility of "encircling the cities from the countryside."

The most prominent feature of the Chinese mobile phone market in recent years is that the market shares of the six major mobile phone manufacturers (Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Apple, and Honor) are almost the same, fluctuating around 15%. A large number of "others" jointly divide up the remaining 5% of the survival space.

Under the premise of a sharp increase in memory and a decline in the overall market, the survival situation of long - tail mobile phone brands in China has become quite difficult.

These mobile phone manufacturers have also publicly stated their attitudes towards Doubao. For example, Meizu once publicly stated that it "looks forward to the opportunity for in - depth cooperation." Yang Yuanqing of Lenovo was more ambiguous. When talking about Doubao Phone, he said that "hardware manufacturers and model manufacturers are in a complementary relationship."

It is worth noting that in addition to mobile phones, Doubao is also making multiple bets on hardware forms. This year, we may see a range of hardware products equipped with Doubao, such as Doubao glasses and headphones.

A supply - chain insider who cooperates with ByteDance's glasses project told Intelligent Emergence that ByteDance's glasses team is "one of the largest glasses teams in China." It even has a R & D team in North America, "to accommodate people poached from Meta."

Intelligent Emergence learned that three different teams participated in the industrial design stage of ByteDance's glasses. Finally, two configuration directions were determined. One is an AI glasses with a display, which will be released in the fourth quarter of 2026. The other is an AI glasses without a display, which will be released in the first quarter of this year (most likely after the Spring Festival).

Collaboration with other mature businesses of ByteDance, including Doubao, will be the main selling point of these new hardware products. A person who has seen ByteDance's glasses told Intelligent Emergence that ByteDance's AI glasses will focus on all - day photography. Not long ago, some media also reported that ByteDance's first - generation glasses are mainly targeted at senior Doubao users.

In addition to glasses, Intelligent Emergence learned from the supply chain that ByteDance is also developing an AI headphone project with a camera.

A person in the glasses industry analyzed to Intelligent Emergence that at the current stage, both glasses and headphones are "appendages" of mobile phones. AI mobile phones will bring great imagination space to other product categories.

The above - mentioned person gave an example. Imagine that in the future, if you want Doubao Phone to do something for you, you don't need to pick up your phone. You can just tell your glasses or headphones. After the phone finishes processing, you will directly receive a "task completed" prompt in your ear, truly freeing your hands.

Actually, from Doubao's various hardware moves, it can be seen that Doubao's ambition is not just to make a mobile phone. Instead, it wants to make the agent with Doubao's model capabilities a standard configuration or even an entrance for all future hardware.

When users get used to a more convenient human - machine interaction, the resulting ecological stickiness is far more valuable than creating a certain hardware product.

As the Doubao model penetrates into hardware, a similar scenario is also happening overseas. Google, Doubao's competitor, has also been actively deploying its Gemini model on a range of hardware devices this year.

To this end, Google has not only cooperated with its former "arch - enemy" Apple to create a new Siri but also tried to apply Gemini to a range of AI glasses and embodied intelligent robots.

A person familiar with the situation told Intelligent Emergence that to expand overseas, Doubao Phone has recently been negotiating with mobile phone manufacturers including vivo to promote the installation of the "Doubao Phone Assistant" in their overseas models. However, the specific details are still under negotiation.

For ByteDance, it already has the top - level resources in China in terms of key elements such as models, talent, computing power, and data.

What ByteDance lacks is just a hardware entrance to centrally output these capabilities. Doubao is a suitable carrier. As an AI application with over 100 million daily active users, Doubao has accumulated a large amount of usage data from Chinese users and has a certain brand effect.

"When the final outcome of hardware in the AI era is not clear, aggressive ByteDance can explore simultaneously without considering resource input," a person in the industry judged to Intelligent Emergence.

Cover source | IC photo

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