Apple's AI assistant may be surpassed in China by Honor's own AI assistant.

• On Friday, Honor unveiled its first AI assistant in an effort to gain a competitive edge and promote its new devices.
• Honor's digital assistant, Yoyo, has received an AI upgrade and will be available in China first, followed by international markets, the company announced.
• Honor's enhanced AI agent will strive to rival Samsung's Bixby and Apple's Siri.

On Friday, Honor unveiled its first AI assistant in an effort to gain a competitive edge over companies such as Apple and promote the use of its latest devices.

The Honor AI Agent, Yoyo's AI upgrade, will soon be available in China, with international markets to follow. Yoyo, Honor's digital assistant, is not new, but the AI infusion is.

In a demonstration witnessed by CNBC, Honor demonstrated how a user could utilize Yoyo to discover automatic subscriptions on WeChat and Alipay, the two most widely used payment apps in China. During the demonstration, Yoyo located the subscriptions and then inquired whether the user desired to cancel them.

Smartphone manufacturers have marketed AI agents as a way to enhance the user experience on phone devices by making them more personalized and efficient. These agents are designed to learn a user's behavior and provide recommendations based on that.

Virtual assistants like Siri and Bixby have been around for a while, but their capabilities have been limited. Now, companies are exploring ways to integrate AI into these virtual helpers, following the success of ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs), which are trained on vast amounts of data and power conversational chatbots.

Samsung and Apple are both upgrading their virtual assistants this year, with Samsung's Bixby using its own LLM and Apple's Siri receiving an improved version.

Honor aims to surpass both major players and domestic competitors with Yoyo.