Nubia's NaviX Ultra has received approval to connect to mobile networks in China, clearing a regulatory step ahead of its planned September 2026 release. The handset is positioned by Nubia as the first commercial smartphone built around an AI agent and will use ByteDance's Doubao assistant, according to CNMO.
Rather than acting as a conventional voice assistant that mainly returns answers, Doubao is intended to interpret user requests and complete tasks on the phone after receiving authorization. Nubia and ByteDance presented the device publicly at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai in July.
The approval follows local compliance work covering both the AI model and the device. The “Nubia Doubao mobile phone large model” was registered on July 8 for use on ZTE phones. The same registration round included AI-related solutions associated with Apple, Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi and Samsung.
Nubia plans to sell the NaviX Ultra as a production model in four color options. The company has not announced pricing, detailed hardware specifications or availability outside China. Earlier information points to authorized app integrations rather than direct simulation of screen taps, which could initially limit the range of services that the AI agent can control.
