❯ Tencent Yuanbao is reportedly building a standalone personal agent app, while Doubao’s rival product Xiaodou is in internal testing

A second app beside YuanbaoAccording to an IT Home report of October 12 carried by Sina Tech, the tech outlet Dujia learned from people familiar with the matter that Tencent Yuanbao is developing a personal agent product called Yuanbao Assistant and plans to release it as a standalone app. A personal agent is an AI assistant that carries out tasks for a user over long periods and remembers personal preferences. Tencent has not publicly confirmed the report.

Why not inside the main appThe report says a standalone app would have its own operating space and permissions, separate from the main Yuanbao app, to support long-running tasks and long-term personal memory, the core abilities of an agent. Several Tencent business units, including its social division, are also developing personal agent products or features. Yuanbao is Tencent’s AI assistant built on its Hunyuan model; it launched on May 30, 2024, and can search, read documents and write reports and code.

ByteDance is on the same pathThe same report notes that on September 29 Doubao was said to be advancing a personal assistant product. The project, once code-named Spell and led by the Doubao phone assistant team, is called Xiaodou and is also planned as a standalone app. It is in internal testing and the public version may change. Both companies are moving the personal agent out of the chat app, so users may later pick an assistant that does things for them in addition to one they chat with.

▮ SIGNALA chat window cannot hold an agent that needs long-term memory and system permissions, and a standalone app is a bid for a deeper foothold on the phone.