ByteDance is accelerating the development of a new personal AI agent, internally codenamed Spell. The project has been undergoing small-scale internal testing since April, initially managed by the Doubao Phone Assistant team. The company aims to evolve its AI from a simple chatbot into an autonomous system capable of executing tasks for users.
The development process now involves a collaboration between the original Spell project team and the Doubao conversational AI unit. This initiative builds upon technical work started in December 2025, when the company first unveiled a technical preview of its phone assistant, followed by a consumer version released in September 2026.
The company is pursuing a dual-track strategy for its agent technology. In addition to the consumer-focused personal assistant, ByteDance launched Doubao Work on August 25. This enterprise-oriented product supports document drafting, meeting organization, and data processing across various software tools.
Doubao Work currently includes features such as local Office file editing, task synchronization across up to five devices, and the ability to create custom skills via screen recordings. The broader industry shift toward personal agents, exemplified by products like Meta Muse and OpenAI’s models, has prompted the acceleration of these efforts.
