Author｜Haotian

In the age of AI, ZTE aims to reclaim its prominence in the smartphone market with Doubao.

Image Source: Weibo

On July 8, 2026, Ni Fei, President of ZTE's Terminal Business Division and CEO of Nubia Technology Co., Ltd., announced via a social media platform that Nubia will unveil the "world's first AI agent smartphone" at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, set to commence on July 17.

In fact, ZTE had already introduced an AI agent smartphone, the Nubia M153, six months prior. This device, featuring the "Doubao Mobile Assistant," is capable of executing tasks across various apps. However, as an engineering prototype showcasing preview technology, the Nubia M153 was produced in extremely limited quantities, aimed solely at tech enthusiasts and developers for initial experience.

According to Ni Fei, the AI agent smartphone that Nubia will introduce at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference is designed as a "mass-production flagship." It targets not just tech enthusiasts or business users but all individuals seeking to simplify their lives.

It is clear that after six months of refinement and optimization, ZTE's AI agent smartphone has matured in terms of product capabilities. It is now transitioning from the technology verification phase to broader market penetration.

However, it's crucial to note that smartphones are not standalone hardware products; the ecosystem is the primary determinant of a product's potential. While technological maturity is just the first step, whether ZTE's AI agent smartphone can integrate applications, services, and the developer ecosystem to become a game-changer in the smartphone industry remains to be seen over time.

01 ZTE: From Smartphone Industry Leader to Marginalized Player

Today, many users may be unfamiliar with ZTE smartphones. In fact, ZTE was once a dominant force in the Chinese smartphone market.

At the dawn of the smartphone era, ZTE's strong integration with operator channels and the launch of customized devices enabled it to rapidly reach a vast consumer base. Data from IDC reveals that in 2012, ZTE's global smartphone shipments reached 65 million units, including 35 million smartphones, ranking fourth worldwide, just behind Samsung, Nokia, and Apple.

In the Chinese smartphone market, as the leader of the "ZHOKU" alliance (ZTE, Huawei, OPPO, Coolpad), ZTE was unparalleled and even once surpassed Huawei.

Unfortunately, ZTE failed to maintain its lead in the smartphone race. After 2013, with the rise of smartphone manufacturers like Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo, ZTE's smartphone shipments declined year after year.

Image Source: IDC

Data from IDC shows that in the global smartphone market in 2018, ZTE's smartphone shipments were only 10.5 million units, with a market share of just 0.75%, in stark contrast to Huawei's 206 million units.

The primary reason ZTE's smartphones were abandoned by consumers is its failure to adjust its business strategy in response to the rapidly changing market environment.

Since 2013, as internet smartphone brands like Xiaomi, Meizu, and OnePlus began creating cost-effective products tailored to consumer needs, the Chinese smartphone industry started to evolve towards higher quality, affordability, and flagship-level features.

Against this backdrop, as a B2B company, ZTE lacked keen insight into the needs of C-end users. It continued to launch a large number of low-end smartphones through operator channels, deviating from consumer demands, and was naturally abandoned by the market.

Image Source: ZTE

In recent years, although ZTE has actively adjusted its smartphone business, developing differentiated technologies such as under-display cameras, direct connectivity to low-Earth orbit satellites, and AI glasses-free 3D, and incubating brands like Nubia and RedMagic gaming smartphones, it has struggled to break out of the "smile curve" due to the fiercely competitive inventory (mature) market in China's smartphone industry, where even giants are seeing declining shipments.

02 ZTE Sees Potential Breakthrough After Partnering with Doubao

Since 2022, with OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT, which ignited the AI concept, many tech companies have seen the potential for transformation and have ventured into innovative hardware, attempting to become the next Apple by creating the "AiPhone."

Image Source: ZTE

In 2025, ZTE proposed the "All in AI, AI for All" strategy, committed to making AI technology accessible to every user and family by reshaping the interaction experience and building a rich ecosystem.

Without historical baggage, ZTE has been extremely aggressive in exploring AI smartphones. In December 2025, ZTE, in collaboration with Doubao, launched the engineering prototype Nubia M153, equipped with a preview version of Doubao Mobile Assistant technology, priced at 3,499 yuan.

Image Source: Doubao

The "Doubao Mobile" retains the same form factor as traditional smartphones, but its core highlight is its ability to perform cross-app automatic operations using GUI simulation and clicking technology based on Doubao's large model capabilities.

For example, when a user instructs the Doubao Mobile to order a cup of Luckin Coffee, the Doubao Mobile Assistant can automatically open the Luckin app, select a beverage that suits the user's needs, and then invoke a payment app. The user only needs to click to pay to complete the order process.

In contrast, most of the so-called "AI smartphones" on the market today merely incorporate fragmented AI features such as AI photo editing, AI summarization, and AI calling at the system level. They do not horizontally connect the mobile internet ecosystem like the Doubao Mobile, significantly enhancing the user experience.

Due to its strong differentiation and the freedom it provides users from cumbersome operations, the Nubia M153 was highly sought after by consumers upon its release. The initial batch of 30,000 units quickly sold out, and second-hand products commanded a premium of several thousand yuan.

In response, Luo Yonghao commented, "I don't know if the Doubao Mobile will succeed, but ByteDance's attempt to take this first step is remarkable and deserves praise. AI assistants will become ubiquitous, and our lives will be completely dependent on them. Future generations will remember this historic day."

It is evident that due to the immense transformative power of AI technology, ZTE now views the Doubao Mobile as a crucial strategic tool to seize the window of opportunity in the AI era and reshape the competitive landscape of the smartphone industry.

03 Internet Giants Become 'Roadblocks' Behind Product Maturity

Although the Doubao Mobile has won user favor with its differentiated experience, it has faced resistance from many developers at the ecosystem level. Days after its release, apps like WeChat, Taobao, and Alipay blocked the Doubao Mobile.

Image Source: Weibo

The reason is that, without access to third-party app APIs, the Doubao Mobile can only rely on technologies like simulated clicking and screen recognition to achieve "one-sentence task execution." This simplistic and crude interaction method disrupts the existing app traffic entry points, data sovereignty, and security risk control systems, leading to its "blacklisting" by many internet platforms.

In response, at the 2026 annual employee conference, Ma Huateng, Chairman and CEO of Tencent, stated that Tencent has always been firmly opposed to using black-market plugins to record and transmit user phone and computer screens to the cloud, "because it is extremely unsafe and irresponsible."

In fact, resistance from mobile internet platforms is precisely one of the main reasons for the slow AI transformation of traditional smartphones.

In recent years, as tools like Codex and Claude Code have matured, Agents are no longer an unattainable technology.

Image Source: OpenAI

However, it is important to note that the primary carrier of current Agent tools is the PC, not the smartphone. This is mainly because Agents heavily rely on third-party interfaces. Due to the relatively open PC ecosystem, Agents can invoke different tools and software to perform corresponding tasks.

In contrast, the mobile internet ecosystem exhibits a significant trend of app isolation. To maintain competitiveness and prevent user and data loss, mobile apps have erected data walls.

Faced with the highly transformative AI technology, most mobile developers adopt a cautious attitude. An all-knowing and all-powerful AI has the potential to become a new entry point. If APIs are fully opened, mobile apps may gradually degenerate from "traffic entry points" to "service providers," losing their user base and information distribution rights.

Take Meituan as an example. If users can complete operations like ordering food delivery or instant shopping directly through the AI assistant on their smartphones, although Meituan would still handle transactions and fulfillment, its connection with users would be weakened. In this context, Meituan's long-accumulated ecological advantages would be diluted, and its synergistic businesses built around instant retail, such as Xiang Supermarket, Meituan Flash Shopping, and Waima Delivery, would struggle to achieve cross-referrals through a unified entry point.

Given the general caution of internet giants towards system-level Agents, although the technology is already mature, leading smartphone manufacturers like Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo dare not aggressively promote it.

Unlike ZTE, which lacks a massive user base, these leading smartphone manufacturers ship hundreds of millions of units annually. If they adopt technologies like GUI simulation to achieve cross-app automatic operations, triggering developer resistance and rendering some apps unusable, it would not only escalate into a public relations crisis but could also lead to user loss.

A typical case is Honor. Although it is also actively investing in AI smartphones, to avoid resistance from internet platforms, it does not use simplistic GUI simulation technology but instead achieves Agent functionality by integrating official interfaces.

Official data shows that the "YOYO Intelligent Agent" (equipped) on the Honor Magic8 series smartphones primarily relies on a system-level MCP architecture to achieve "one-sentence automatic task execution," supporting over 3,000 automatic execution scenarios. However, since not all internet platforms proactively open their interfaces, the applicability of the Honor Magic8's AI features is far inferior to that of the Doubao Mobile, preventing it from gaining market traction.

Reviewing the development of the tech industry, every innovation that truly changes the industry landscape often comes from redefining existing rules. From the original iPhone reshaping smartphones to the mobile internet reshaping the app ecosystem, the real winners have never been those that simply stack features but those that create entirely new interaction paradigms.

The same holds true in the AI era. ZTE's early bet on AI agent smartphones and its attempt to reshape human-computer interaction demonstrate the courage to break industry inertia. However, competition in the tech industry is never won by aggressive ideas alone. Any new interaction method must ultimately be built on a foundation of win-win outcomes for user experience, developer ecosystem, and commercial interests.

For ZTE, the real test is not being the first to launch an AI agent smartphone but whether it can close the loop between hardware, systems, and the ecosystem, transforming AI from an eye-catching new feature into a new entry point that users rely on daily.

It can be said that the ultimate outcome of AI smartphones may not hinge on model capabilities but on who can first reshape the next-generation mobile ecosystem.

Interactive Topic

Have you used a PC-based Agent? What are your expectations for smartphone Agents?

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