Nubia introduced the world's first smartphone featuring a native AI agent at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2026). This move signifies a shift from simple AI add-ons to autonomous agent systems capable of understanding, executing, and remembering user tasks across various applications.
The first such smartphone will be unveiled in Shanghai and developed by ZTE in partnership with ByteDance Doubao. Unlike existing models that merely overlay AI functions onto traditional operating systems, the native agent integrates intelligence at the system level. This enables autonomous task execution between applications, maintains persistent memory, and provides proactive services.
Ni Fei, President of ZTE's Terminal Business Unit, noted on social media that current AI phones are just accumulating features, forcing users to expend more effort managing them. He emphasized that the second phase of smartphone development is moving from feature accumulation to native agents, where the device independently understands user intent rather than waiting for commands. The device meets four criteria: speech recognition, real task execution, context memory, and security.
Nubia's launch accelerates the transformation of the entire Chinese smartphone industry towards AI-nativity. Companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Honor, OPPO, and Vivo have announced system-level AI strategies for 2026. Honor plans to hold a special forum at WAIC dedicated to the transition from digital screens to embodied intelligence, discussing robot phone technologies and physical AI. Fan Fei, President of Honor's Product Division, stated at MWC Shanghai that the gadget of the decade will cease to be merely an application container but will become a platform for agents, linking user understanding with cloud models and AI service ecosystems.
The political climate favors this development. Chen Kai, Deputy Director of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, reported at the China Internet Conference 2026 that the national program 'Artificial Intelligence Plus Action,' launched by the State Council in 2025, is directly aimed at achieving over 90% adoption of intelligent terminals and next-generation agents by 2030. This policy creates a clear regulatory path for AI-native devices to enter the mass consumer market.
Furthermore, StepFun, a domestic developer of AI models, announced the launch of its own brand of terminals and smartphones with an AI agent at WAIC, along with an agent operating system. This demonstrates that pure-play companies focused on AI models are also entering hardware, recognizing that the smartphone can become a crucial physical carrier for interacting with agent-based AI in the consumer segment. Thus, the category of agent phones expands beyond phone manufacturers to encompass the AI industry itself.
Industry analysts view the native agent phone as a structural update for the smartphone industry, which has faced innovation fatigue. The shift from an app-grid interface to conversational AI that proactively manages tasks has the potential to differentiate hardware brands, increase device value, and stimulate upgrade cycles. However, it remains an open question whether the agent interaction experience will be convincing enough to justify a premium price, and whether hardware manufacturers can ensure reliable task execution across thousands of applications and services.
Nubia has announced plans to present the world's first mass-produced smartphone featuring an AI agent at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), which will take place in Shanghai from July 17 to 20, 2026. This gadget is developed using ByteDance's Doubao technology and is capable of autonomously performing tasks through a Graphical User Interface (GUI) agent technology.
Nubia, the smartphone brand under ZTE, confirmed that the device is a flagship model for mass production, not an engineering prototype. Unlike traditional voice assistants such as Siri or Xiaomi Xiaoai, which primarily answer questions, the Nubia smartphone with an AI agent can autonomously execute multi-step tasks. For instance, it can find the cheapest flight to Beijing, compare prices, enter passenger data, and complete the booking—all without direct user interaction with the screen.
The core of the device is an AI agent technology with GUI support, which allows it to visually recognize buttons, text, and icons on the screen, simulating finger taps, swipes, and other operations. Nubia has implemented a three-layer technical architecture: deep AI integration at the operating system level, on-device inference of a large language model to ensure privacy and speed, and an open OpenClaw architecture allowing third-party developers to integrate their own AI capabilities.
This phone is expected to be the second version of the Doubao phone, co-developed with ByteDance. The previous model, Nubia M153, which was a technical preview, sold 30,000 units in one day at the end of 2025. However, it was blocked by WeChat, Alipay, and banking applications after five days due to the use of the INJECT_EVENTS system permission, which simulated user clicks and triggered security systems.
According to industry sources, the second generation of the device has shifted to agent-based interaction using MCP and A2A protocols. This eliminates the need for screen recognition and click simulation, thereby bypassing the platform blocking issues that plagued the M153 model. It is also reported that the device is equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor and flagship-level specifications. The launch of this product places Nubia at the forefront of a new category of devices capable of changing consumer approaches to smartphones—shifting from human function searching to proactive AI task execution. The first public demonstration of the production-ready device will take place at WAIC in Shanghai.
