Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup Zhipu AI is testing a tool designed to complete tasks on behalf of smartphone users based on their voice commands, illustrating a future where people's digital lives are automated.
According to the Beijing-based company, AutoGLM, an AI application, is capable of understanding relatively complex voice commands, such as "repeat my recent cereal order from shopping history" or "order a latte from the nearest coffee shop."
Zhipu AI, which operates a range of AI models such as ChatGLM, says AutoGLM can plan the steps involved in each task, “read” the information that appears on the screen, and perform the necessary actions on the smartphone.
AutoGLM is the latest example of Chinese startups developing products to bring AI capabilities to consumers via smartphones, in a market that lacks much competition from foreign rivals.
For example, Apple’s Intelligence tool launched this week in many regions around the world in US English, but it’s not yet available in China. Or Open AI, whose hit product ChatGPT is also not available in China.
As a product marketed to Chinese users, AutoGLM is compatible with popular local apps and platforms, such as WeChat, Taobao, Amap, Meituan, etc.
For example, when a South China Morning Post (SCMP) reporter asked the AI to order a latte, the app automatically opened the Meituan food delivery platform, searched for cafes, ranked them by distance, selected the nearest one, and selected the right drink. For safety reasons, the app still requires the user to manually confirm before paying.
However, AutoGLM is still in beta and still needs a lot of tweaking and has many bugs. For example, the app's AI agent sent WeChat messages to the wrong recipient, booked a hotel for 30 days instead of the requested two, and summarized a website instead of writing a review when asked.
In its user guide for early adopters, Zhipu AI notes that the tool's speech recognition module “still has many issues to be fixed.”
Another common complaint from test users is slow response.
According to one user in the WeChat group, the AI on AutoGLM is too slow and there is still room for improvement. The user added that unless you are extremely busy, completing the task yourself would be faster.
