ByteDance2026-09-30 08:24:20ByteDance’s personal AI assistant is reportedly named Xiaodou, with a standalone app plannedBlockBeats reported in a brief update that Doubao’s in-development personal AI assistant is internally positioned under the name Xiaodou and is expected to launch as a standalone app. The report said the project was not started as a last-minute response after Muse gained traction, noting that the Xiaodou name had already been decided this summer. The personal assistant effort, codenamed Spell, began internal testing in April and was initially led by the Doubao mobile assistant team. More recently, the project has been integrated more closely with Doubao’s existing product lineup and is now being handled jointly by the Spell project team and the Doubao chat team. Under the current product split, Doubao’s main app remains the general AI entry point, Doubao Work is aimed at office use cases, and Xiaodou is targeting the consumer personal assistant segment.20
ByteDance2026-09-30 07:44:18ByteDance’s Doubao names personal AI assistant “Xiaodou,” standalone app said to be in testingByteDance’s Doubao has named its personal AI assistant product “Xiaodou,” with a standalone app version also in the plan, according to a Sept. 30 report by Dujia cited by ChainCatcher. The report said the name was finalized during this summer break period and that the product remains in internal testing, with the final public-facing version still subject to change. A separate Sept. 29 report from Sina Tech said Doubao is speeding up work on a personal assistant product and plans to deeply integrate an exploratory internal project code-named “Spell” with Doubao’s existing product lineup. The new product is expected to launch externally relatively soon. As of publication, Doubao had not responded. The report also placed Xiaodou in the context of China’s Personal Agent race. In that lineup, Doubao’s main app handles general conversation, Doubao Work targets enterprise office use, and Xiaodou is aimed at the consumer personal assistant segment. Tencent was previously reported to be secretly developing Handy Bot, while Alibaba’s Qwen team has also proposed building a user-owned Personal Agent. No mature, mass-produced always-on personal Agent product has yet emerged in China, with most offerings still in internal testing or gray rollout preparation.20
