China’s Z.ai open sources AI agent tool for phones after ByteDance privacy backlash

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Z.ai on Tuesday open sourced a tool it spent years developing to put AI capability into every smartphone, a move that follows backlash against ByteDance’s newly released AI phone over privacy concerns.\nBeijing-based Z.ai, also known as Zhipu AI, said it released its Phone Agent – the software framework underpinning AutoGLM, an AI agent app it launched last year to perform tasks on smartphones for users – on the source code platforms GitHub and Hugging Face.\nIncluded in the framework are the AutoGLM-Phone-9B foundational model and Phone Use, a suite of AI capabilities and tools that enable the agent to operate a smartphone, currently supporting only Android devices.\nThe company said in a statement that it decided to make Phone Agent the open source alternative to AutoGLM so it could turn “AI’s capability to operate smartphones into a public foundation collectively owned and fine-tuned by the whole industry”.\nZ.ai said its work in “teaching AI how to use a smartphone” dated back to early 2023. After initial failures, it was able to launch a usable version of AutoGLM in October last year, which the company claimed was the first AI agent capable of operating a smartphone based on a user’s voice command.\nIn a demonstration at the time, Z.ai’s AutoGLM was able to complete tasks such as ordering coffee and making online purchases.\n\nThe move to open source AutoGLM could also cede control back to developers and users, as concerns over privacy grew amid the increase in AI agents’ abilities to operate smartphones, the company added.\nZ.ai’s decision to open source AutoGLM, which it spent more than two years developing, comes at a time when ByteDance has stirred industry-wide controversy with its recently released Doubao AI phone, offering similar automated capabilities such as sending messages or hailing online rides.\nWhile the handset, developed in partnership with ZTE, was meant to showcase how the AI-powered device could reshape the way consumers navigate their digital life, it was met with resistance from the tech industry over data and privacy issues.\nChinese Big Tech firms from Tencent Holdings to Alibaba Group Holding, as well as local banks, have limited Doubao’s operations in their apps over data security concerns. ByteDance later said in a statement it would also limit the use of Doubao in certain areas.\nZ.ai said its Phone Agent supported automation tasks on more than 50 mainstream Chinese apps, including Tencent’s WeChat super app, Alibaba’s Taobao shopping app, rival Meituan’s namesake on-demand delivery app and Didi’s ride-hailing app.\nAlibaba owns the Post.\nByteDance and Z.ai are not the only Chinese companies trying to automate smartphone operations using AI. StepFun, a Shanghai-based AI start-up, last week open-sourced GElab Zero, a tool suite to help hardware developers build AI into their devices.\n