The smartphone is becoming the agent - Inquirer Technology

Your smartphone already knows where you are, what time your next meeting starts, and which apps you use. Alibaba now wants it to do something with all that information.

The company is betting on that idea with Qwen Intelligence, a platform designed to help smartphone makers build AI agents directly into their devices. Instead of asking an AI a question and waiting for an answer, users could give it a task and let it handle the steps.

Ask the phone to arrange a business trip to Shanghai, for example, and it could book a flight, find a hotel, update your calendar, and build an itinerary. If the flight is canceled, it could adjust the plan and look for alternatives.

Alibaba introduced Qwen Intelligence at the Apsara Conference in Hangzhou as a full-stack system covering mobile-optimized foundation models and specialized agents.

The Mobile Planner Agent breaks complicated requests into tasks, chooses the tools it needs, and adjusts when circumstances change. The Mobile-Use Agent carries out those tasks across apps, using APIs where available and graphical interfaces when necessary. The Mobile Creative Agent handles image generation and editing.

Alibaba is also developing personalized memory, proactive assistance, multimodal interaction, and other specialized agents.

Alibaba has built MobilePA-Bench to test that capability, covering more than 1,000 real-world mobile tasks and more than 200 tools. Other evaluations focus on long-running, cross-app tasks and interactions with real devices.

HONOR is Qwen Intelligence’s first smartphone partner, with the two companies working together on AI models and solutions for next-generation devices. HONOR’s Magic9 Series and HONOR Robot Phone are the first announced devices incorporating the platform.

Alibaba and HONOR are also positioning Qwen Intelligence and MagicOS as the foundation for an “agentic OS,” where AI operates across the phone instead of being confined to a single assistant or app.

Alibaba says HONOR’s AI smartphones can reach 91.8% task accuracy and handle workflows involving more than 100 steps. Those are company-reported results from its evaluation system, rather than a guarantee of what every device will accomplish.

There is also a practical question around how much access users will want to give an AI that can actually operate their phones. Qwen Intelligence includes security and privacy measures, but an agent that can navigate apps, access information, remember preferences, and carry out tasks necessarily has more access to your digital life than a chatbot that simply answers questions.

That may be the real change Alibaba is proposing. The smartphone is no longer just the place where you ask AI for help. It becomes the device that can use your apps and information to get the job done.

And if that works, your next phone may spend less time waiting for you to tap the screen.