Tech giants accelerate development of personal AI assistants to compete with meta's muse

On October 9, internal sources at ByteDance revealed that the company had intensified efforts to develop a personal AI assistant during the National Day holiday. The project, codenamed 'Spell,' originated from a new initiative launched in April 2025 and is a continuation of the personal agent direction explored by the Doudou phone assistant. The product is being led by the Doudou phone assistant team and aims to integrate with existing Doudou products for a swift launch. Meanwhile, Tencent launched its personal AI assistant, LightVela, in late September, positioning it as a 'cloud-based personal assistant' accessible via WeChat. The product is currently in a developer experience phase. Meta introduced its personal AI assistant, Muse, on September 8, which can perform tasks like sending emails and booking travel. Muse accesses user data across various applications with explicit user authorization and is designed to take action on behalf of users, a concept emphasized by Mark Zuckerberg as a step toward 'personal super intelligence'.