ByteDance Ships Doubao Phone Assistant With App Opt-Out Protocol

BEIJING - ByteDance Ltd. on Monday released the consumer version of its Doubao phone assistant and, on the same day, published a draft Screen Automation Execution Protocol that lets third-party apps declare whether they will allow or refuse AI-driven screen automation - the first device to ship the assistant is the Nubia NaviX Ultra, co-developed with ZTE Corp., which goes on sale at 2 p.m. on Sept. 16 with preorders already open.

Photo: Nubia

Users can wake the assistant by voice or with a dedicated AI key that requires fingerprint authentication before the software proceeds. Features listed for this build include on-screen question-and-answer about whatever is displayed, local search across photos, text messages and notes, and a link from voice recording into Feishu Miaoji, Lark’s transcription tool. A cross-app task runner branded “Operate Phone” is marked Beta. In a company demo, a user points the camera at furniture and asks for a cabinet under 1.2 meters and under 1,000 yuan; the assistant then navigates a shopping app to find matches.

Photo: Nubia

ByteDance says data processing mixes on-device and cloud inference and cites certifications including ISO 27001, ISO 27701, ISO/IEC 42001 and China’s MLPS Level 3. Published hardware figures for the NaviX Ultra put the phone at about 7.62 millimeters thick with a 7,100 milliamp-hour battery. The company qualifies that how far the assistant works depends on device model, system version, app adaptation and user authorization, and that this consumer build ships only with the NaviX Ultra for now.

Photo: Nubia

Screenshot: 智东西China AI News on X

SAEP opens a 30-day public comment period. Apps that explicitly opt out will not receive automated actions from Doubao, ByteDance says - a response to years of assistants that relied on accessibility permissions and simulated taps without giving the operated app a formal veto. The protocol is drafted and maintained by ByteDance rather than an industry standards body, and the company has not yet specified who is authorized to declare boundaries, whether rules apply at the page or app level, or how the assistant should back off after a refusal. For China’s app ecosystem, the practical test will be whether payment flows, CAPTCHAs and login walls remain human-only while shopping and content apps decide whether to invite an AI agent in.