Huawei's HarmonyOS 6 AI Agents: A New Rival to Android and iOS

In today's landscape of mobile operating systems, the battleground has shifted from app stores and interfaces to artificial intelligence prowess. Huawei's recent offensive takes form with HarmonyOS 6, where AI agents are not merely features but integral components of user interaction architecture.

The beta version for developers marks a larger industry trend where operating systems evolve from passive roles into intelligent mediators that predict, learn, and act for users.

The highlight of HarmonyOS 6 is its AI agents framework, which empowers developers to craft automated programs without the hassle of creating or training foundational models from the ground up.

The HarmonyOS Agent Framework aims to simplify AI development within Huawei's ecosystem.

Richard Yu Chengdong, Chairman of Huawei's consumer business division, announced that HarmonyOS 6 would feature over 50 AI agents from renowned Chinese platforms like Weibo and Ximalaya upon its consumer release.

Nonetheless, Yu did not disclose a specific public launch date during a presentation at a developer conference conducted on Friday.

The integration of AI agents exemplifies an industry movement where operating systems transform into platforms for deploying artificial intelligence rather than merely launching applications. By embedding AI capabilities at the OS level, Huawei crafts HarmonyOS 6 to serve as a blueprint for what it terms next-generation computing experiences.

The platform boasts eight million registered developers and over 30,000 applications, along with “atomic services” – lightweight programs that function without needing installation. HarmonyOS 5 operates on more than 40 device models, demonstrating strong hardware adoption.

Yu acknowledged the competitive market scene, noting that HarmonyOS still trails behind Apple's iOS and Google's Android in terms of global presence and app support.

He added, “However, the top 5,000 apps account for 99.9 percent of time spent by consumers” on Huawei devices, implying a focus on essential applications over sheer volume.

Huawei's pragmatic strategy underscores a focus on quality and user engagement, rather than relying solely on numbers. The emphasis on key applications that influence user habits points to a robust approach to challenging established platforms.

Furthermore, Huawei has launched Pangu 5.5, the latest addition to their suite of AI models tailored for enterprise and industrial applications. Their natural language processing model contains 718 billion parameters, while the computer vision model has 15 billion parameters, giving them a competitive edge in today's AI realm.

The company is zeroing in on five specific sectors: medicine, finance, governance, manufacturing, and automotive. This industrial focus suggests Huawei is leveraging AI development to fortify its enterprise relationships, especially while consumer access remains limited by geopolitical issues.

The integration of the AI model with HarmonyOS 6 births a vertically unified stack where Huawei governs both AI infrastructure and OS deployment, potentially enhancing optimization and performance capabilities.

Industry consultancy indicates that Huawei has shipped over 103 million smartphones and 21 million tablets with HarmonyOS, with nearly half distributed in 2024. This surge suggests increasing internal adoption and signals platform momentum in China's local market.

Huawei has extended HarmonyOS beyond mobile devices, introducing two new laptops featuring the operating system. This multi-device strategy strives to establish a cohesive software experience akin to Apple's ecosystem approach, though achieving this across varied hardware categories presents technical complexities.

The development of HarmonyOS 6 epitomizes Huawei's overall shift from a hardware-centric business to one oriented around software and services. This evolution, necessitated by US Entity List sanctions since 2019, has driven the company towards innovative technology advancements and market positioning strategies.