(Yicai) Aug. 13 -- Honor has launched the world’s first robot phone, marking the smartphone industry’s first attempt to put an artificial intelligence agent in direct control of a handset’s physical hardware.

The Chinese consumer electronics maker, previously part of Huawei Technologies, has built a three-axis gimbal into the Robot Phone that can unfold from the handset and move its camera, giving the device its “robot phone” moniker and setting it apart from standard smartphones.

Normal smartphones rely on users to manually operate their cameras. The Robot Phone takes a different approach. Its AI agent can interpret a user’s shooting intentions and then direct the camera and gimbal accordingly, Chief Executive Li Jian said at yesterday’s launch event. AI is no longer merely a software feature embedded in the phone, he added, but an intermediary layer connecting AI models with sensors and physical actuators.

The development could herald a new wave of rapid growth for AI-powered devices as hardware form factors become increasingly diverse and the market continues to grow, Li said. “We are confident in this,” he added.

Turning the concept into a mass-produced smartphone, however, presents a formidable set of engineering challenges.

When Shenzhen-based Honor initiated the Robot Phone project, “there were many objections,” Li said. Adding mechanical components meant striking a new balance among the handset’s weight, thickness, power consumption, reliability, and cost, he said.

For the broader smartphone industry, the significance of this development may not ultimately hinge on whether the Robot Phone’s gimbal becomes a standard feature of next-generation handsets. Li said. The bigger question is whether the phone’s hardware architecture and interaction model can accommodate the next generation of AI once machines can understand intent, make decisions, and execute tasks, he noted.

If they cannot, smartphone makers may face more than another round of functional upgrades, according to Li. The industry could undergo a broader restructuring spanning software and hardware and shifting from standalone devices toward multi-device collaboration.

Looking back in two or three years, various new devices will emerge, not only from Honor, but also from across the entire industry, Li noted.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine