Nubia to launch AI agent smartphone

ZTE — Nubia Technology, a subsidiary of ZTE, announced it will unveil what it claims is the world's first AI agent smartphone at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026 in China — Shanghai, China, from July 17 to 20. The device is expected to be the successor to the ZTE — Nubia Technology M153, which featured ByteDance's Doubao AI assistant. Unlike conventional AI phones, the new handset integrates the AI agent at the operating system level, enabling it to understand natural language and perform complex cross-app tasks autonomously. The system uses an on-device large language model and a graphical user interface agent, along with ZTE's CoClaw intelligent scheduling technology. ZTE — Nubia Technology has not yet confirmed the phone's name, hardware specifications, price, or commercial release date. The M153, launched in limited quantities in China in December 2025 and globally at MWC 2026, sold out its initial batch of 30,000 units on the first day.