TECNO has unveiled the next stage of development for EllaClaw, its beta-stage mobile AI agent designed to make smartphones more intelligent and proactive. Announced on June 24, 2026, EllaClaw goes beyond traditional voice assistants by completing everyday tasks across apps, optimizing device performance, and providing personalized assistance. The company says its goal is to make advanced AI practical, accessible, and useful for everyday users, especially in emerging markets.

EllaClaw Brings Practical Agentic AI to Smartphones

Unlike conventional AI assistants that mainly respond to commands, EllaClaw is a cloud-based AI agent that can understand requests, plan actions, and complete tasks on a user’s behalf. It works proactively in the background to simplify complex workflows while keeping users informed about every action it performs.

TECNO says EllaClaw is designed to automate real-world tasks instead of simply answering questions, making smartphones more capable of handling everyday activities with minimal user effort.

Cross-App Intelligence Simplifies Everyday Tasks

One of EllaClaw’s biggest upgrades is its cross-app intelligence. Instead of relying on direct integrations, the AI understands graphical user interfaces (GUI), allowing it to navigate supported third-party apps much like a human user.

With user permission, EllaClaw can interact with shopping, transportation, food delivery, and smart home apps. It performs actions visibly on the screen so users can follow every step, providing greater transparency and confidence in AI-driven automation.

AI Optimizes Phone Performance with 40+ Smart Skills

EllaClaw also works as an intelligent device management assistant by monitoring and optimizing battery life, mobile data, storage, RAM, and CPU performance.

TECNO has introduced more than 40 Smart Skills to improve everyday smartphone usage. Smart CleanUp Boost frees RAM, optimizes CPU resources, and reduces system lag for smoother performance. Smart Power Drain Check detects apps that consume excessive battery and optimizes background activity to extend battery life.

The AI also includes Instant Cool-down Relief, which lowers device temperature during heavy workloads by managing background processes, while Smart Data Guardian tracks mobile data usage, learns personal usage habits, and helps users avoid excessive data consumption. TECNO says this feature is particularly useful in regions where mobile data plans remain limited.

Personalized Assistance for Daily Life

EllaClaw becomes more personalized through persistent memory, allowing it to learn user habits and preferences over time.

Its Morning Briefing combines calendar events, travel itineraries, weather updates, and curated news into a single overview. The Trip Prep Assistant helps organize travel schedules, book rides, set departure alarms, and prepare actionable travel plans before users leave.

TECNO has also added relationship-focused features that remind users to contact family members or partners, notify them about weather changes that could affect plans, and provide contextual reminders for daily activities.

Shopping, Ride Booking, and Smart Home Control

EllaClaw extends its capabilities through several cross-app AI experiences. Users can book transportation using natural language with One-Sentence Ride Hailing, while Shopping Buddy searches for products and compares options across shopping platforms such as Lazada.

The AI can also monitor connected smart home devices, provide status updates, and support smart home routines, allowing users to manage multiple connected devices through a single intelligent assistant.

Privacy and User Control Come First

TECNO says EllaClaw follows a confirmation-first privacy model. The AI asks for user approval before making important system changes or accessing supported applications, ensuring users remain in full control of their devices.

The assistant also performs actions visibly instead of silently in the background, allowing users to see exactly what it is doing. Supported apps require secure opt-in permissions before EllaClaw can access them.

Availability

TECNO says EllaClaw is currently undergoing internal testing and is available only as a closed beta. The company describes it as an exploratory AI concept and plans to announce additional features and broader availability in future updates.

With cross-app automation, system-level device optimization, more than 40 Smart Skills, and personalized assistance, TECNO is positioning EllaClaw as a practical mobile AI agent rather than a traditional chatbot. By combining proactive task automation with transparent, confirmation-first privacy controls, the company aims to make advanced AI more useful for everyday smartphone users while ensuring they remain in complete control of their devices.

The post TECNO Unveils Upgraded EllaClaw AI with Cross-App Automation and 40+ Smart Skills appeared first on Gizmochina.

Key Highlights:

• Alibaba launches Qwen-3.5 with open and closed versions
  
• 60% cheaper and 8× stronger at handling large workloads
  
• Built for the emerging “agentic AI” era
  

Alibaba Unveils Qwen-3.5 Ahead of Lunar New Year

Alibaba Cloud has introduced its next-generation AI model family, Qwen-3.5, just ahead of the Lunar New Year. The launch is part of a broader wave of new flagship AI releases from major Chinese developers. The models are available through Alibaba Cloud’s Model Studio and are designed to strengthen China’s position in the global AI race.

Two Models, Different Strategies

The company released Qwen-3.5-Open-Source, a 397-billion-parameter model whose weights are publicly available on Hugging Face and ModelScope. Alibaba claims it outperforms its earlier trillion-parameter model while matching leading systems from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind.

Qwen-3.5-Plus remains closed-source and offers a 1-million-token context window, targeting enterprise customers and large deployments.

Built for the Agentic AI Era

Alibaba says Qwen-3.5 is 60% cheaper to use and delivers eight times better performance on large workloads compared to its predecessor. It includes multimodal features, understanding text, images, audio, and video. The model also introduces “visual agentic capabilities,” allowing it to operate mobile and desktop apps and complete multi-step tasks independently.

Intensifying Chinese AI Competition

Qwen competes with Chinese rivals such as ByteDance’s Doubao and DeepSeek. With expanded support for 201 languages and growing global downloads, Alibaba’s latest release signals rising competition between Chinese AI leaders.

Impact on Global AI Leaders

The launch of Qwen-3.5 increases competitive pressure on global AI leaders like OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), and xAI (Grok). While it may not immediately reduce their global user base, it strengthens China’s domestic alternatives and expands open-weight adoption worldwide. If Qwen delivers similar performance at lower cost, it could attract developers, startups, and enterprises looking for cheaper large-context models.

However, brand trust, ecosystem integration, and enterprise partnerships still give US firms a strong advantage outside China. In short, it may not disrupt them overnight, but it clearly raises the competitive stakes.

Read More:

• Why Elon Musk Wants to Build an AI Factory on the Moon?
• No Humans on Stage: Inside the World’s First Robot-Led Live Event by AGIBOT
• No Humans, Just 16 Claude AI Agents Built a Fully Functional C Compiler, Shocking Developers

(via)

The post Alibaba Launches Qwen-3.5: Is This China’s Answer to ChatGPT? appeared first on Gizmochina.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• ByteDance and ZTE are developing a second-generation Agentic AI, Doubao phone, for a planned late-2026 launch.
  
• The first AI phone sold out quickly but was limited to around 30,000 units as an engineering test.
  
• ByteDance aims to expand Doubao AI across third-party smartphones rather than build its own hardware long-term.
• The company’s OS-level agentic AI ambitions position it as a potential challenger to Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, and other major smartphone ecosystems.

Early Prototype Sold Out After Limited Release

ByteDance’s first AI-powered smartphone, built with ZTE and running the company’s Doubao agentic assistant, sold out rapidly in China. The device, ZTE Nubia M153, was marketed as an engineering prototype rather than a commercial product. According to industry sources, the initial batch consisted of roughly 30,000 units, designed mainly to test real-world performance. Despite the limited supply, consumer interest was strong, with resale prices rising more than 40% above retail.

Why ByteDance Released a Prototype Instead of a Full Product

The company intentionally treated the first phone as a market experiment. The goal was to evaluate Doubao’s system-level automation, including cross-app operations such as ticket booking, restaurant reservations, price comparison, and complex task coordination. The feedback from this early batch will inform the design and capabilities of future devices.

App Restrictions After Privacy and Control Concerns

Shortly after launch, the phone faced nationwide pushback from major Chinese apps. Several high-usage platforms blocked or limited the Doubao assistant, citing concerns over fairness, data access, and the device’s ability to control apps at an OS level. This reflected growing industry unease about agentic AI performing actions across apps without traditional API permissions, an issue that drew wide scrutiny in earlier reporting.

New Second-Gen AI Phone Targeted for Late 2026

ByteDance and ZTE are now jointly developing a second-generation smartphone, with a planned launch window in late 2026. This upcoming version is reportedly more mature in both hardware and AI integration. The shift to next-generation development has led to the halt of production for the current prototype.

ByteDance’s Long-Term Hardware Strategy

Despite entering the smartphone market with these early models, ByteDance says it does not plan to become a long-term phone manufacturer. Instead, it wants Doubao to operate as an OS-level AI layer that other smartphone makers can adopt. However, analysts at Morgan Stanley and IDC warn that partnering with major OEMs may be challenging, as brands like Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi are expected to rely on their own AI systems.

Why ByteDance Is Entering the AI Phone Market

ByteDance, best known worldwide for TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin, is not a traditional hardware company. Its push into AI phones is driven by the need to test and scale agentic AI directly at the operating-system level. Working with partners like ZTE allows ByteDance to control the device environment, sharpen Doubao’s automation features, and demonstrate its capabilities to potential OEM collaborators, all without any plan to become a permanent phone manufacturer.

Future Opportunities and Challenges 

IDC predicts ByteDance may struggle to secure top-tier hardware partners by 2026, potentially limiting Doubao’s reach despite 159 million MAUs. Still, the company sees strong opportunities for app developers and enterprise vendors, particularly in e-commerce, travel, payments, and food delivery sectors that can benefit from Doubao’s cross-app orchestration. 

On the other hand, ByteDance’s Volcano Engine, already handling nearly half of China’s public-cloud LLM API calls, positions the company well for broader AI ecosystem expansion.

Read More:

• Leaked Video Exposes Tesla’s Robot Secret: Was Optimus Being Remote-Controlled?
• Why U.S. Startups Are Dumping Western AI for China’s Open-Source Models
• ByteDance’s Agentic AI Phone Sparks Panic and Nationwide App Bans

(via)

The post TikTok’s Parent ByteDance is Now Making Phones and Challenging Industry Giants in AI appeared first on Gizmochina.

Key Highlights:

• ByteDance’s new agentic AI smartphone faces major pushback from major Chinese apps over security and fairness concerns.
  
• The company has restricted its AI agent, Doubao, after reports of blocked logins, account freezes, and privacy worries.
  
• The launch reveals both the promise and risks of fully autonomous AI systems that can control a device like a human.
  

ByteDance’s Agentic AI Smartphone Faces Major Pushback Across China

ByteDance’s ambitious new AI smartphone, the Nubia M153, is drawing significant resistance from major Chinese platforms, prompting the company to roll back several of its most advanced features. Powered by Doubao, an agentic AI capable of operating the phone like a human, this device was meant to showcase the future of autonomous mobile computing. Instead, it has triggered a wave of concerns over security, fairness, and user privacy.

Major Chinese Apps Push Back

Leading platforms, including Alipay, Pinduoduo, and Taobao, have restricted or blocked Doubao’s automated operations. These companies cite issues such as unfair engagement, potential misuse, and risks to financial security. Some users reported that their accounts were frozen shortly after the AI performed tasks inside sensitive apps, even when they logged in manually.

Only a handful of major apps, including Meituan and ByteDance’s own Douyin, continue to work normally with the AI assistant.

ByteDance Restricts Doubao’s Powers

In response, ByteDance has scaled back Doubao’s capabilities. The AI can no longer interact with financial apps, claim user incentives, or operate competitive games where automated play could offer unfair advantages. The most significant restriction concerns WeChat: users experienced app crashes and suspensions, leading ByteDance to temporarily disable Doubao’s ability to control it.

The company says it is now working with developers to set clearer rules to avoid blanket bans.

Privacy Concerns Add to User Hesitation

ByteDance insists that the phone does not store screen data on its servers and that users’ activity is not used to train AI models. Still, many early adopters remain cautious. Doubao’s “global memory,” which allows it to remember tasks across apps, has heightened worries about device-level surveillance and unintended data exposure.

Real-World Challenges

The Nubia M153 made headlines after viral demos showed Doubao navigating apps visually, scrolling, typing, posting content, and completing multi-step tasks without step-by-step commands. The system’s full-stack control surpassed traditional assistants like Siri or Google Assistant, which rely on limited API calls.

But the same power that excited AI enthusiasts also alarmed regulators, app developers, and ordinary users.

Future Plans and Industry Impact

ByteDance stresses that the Nubia M153 is a “technology preview” priced at 3,499 yuan, mainly for industry professionals. The company plans to license Doubao to more smartphone brands after refining safety controls. The episode highlights a larger industry shift as tech companies worldwide, like Apple, Google, and OpenAI, race to build action-capable AI assistants.

For now, ByteDance’s phone demonstrates both the potential and the pitfalls of giving AI near-human control over a device. As the debate continues, the industry faces a defining question: how much autonomy should AI really have?

Read More:

• Leaked Video Exposes Tesla’s Robot Secret: Was Optimus Being Remote-Controlled?
• Say Goodbye to Driving: Rivian CEO Says Cars Will Soon Run Errands Without You
• Xiaomi’s AI Gamble Pays Off Big: Nobody Expected Returns This Fast

(via)

The post ByteDance’s Agentic AI Phone Sparks Panic and Nationwide App Bans appeared first on Gizmochina.