Doubao to Launch Standalone Personal Assistant App 'Xiaodou', Currently in Internal Testing

Doubao, owned by ByteDance, is working on a standalone product for personal assistant features. The project is internally codenamed 'Spell' and led by the Doubao phone assistant team. The product name 'Xiaodou' was decided this summer.

Xiaodou will launch as a standalone app and is currently in internal testing. The final public version may change, and official announcements will be the final word.

The product extends Doubao's personal assistant capabilities from phones into a standalone app. Earlier, a technical preview of the Doubao phone assistant debuted in December 2025 on the Nubia M153 engineering prototype made with ZTE. In September 2026, the consumer version launched on the Nubia NaviX Ultra.