[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] China AI startup StepFun has launched the STEPX Neo smartphone, which puts AI agents at the centre instead of apps, Decrypt reported on Oct. 17 (local time).
According to the report, the Tencent-backed STEPX Neo is priced at 3,999 yuan, or about $560. It also includes a 12-month AI plan allowing the use of 100 billion tokens per month.
StepFun did not disclose how much it would charge for AI use after 1 year.
The STEPX Neo offers an AI agent called Amoo built into the base software operating system, Step AOS 1.0, rather than installed as an app.
Users can simply say their destination without opening a ride-hailing app and entering an address, and Amoo handles the rest, the company said.
StepFun stressed that unlike Siri and Gemini inside iOS or Android, it developed Step AOS from scratch for agents and implemented long-term memory, task schedule management and security features in the base layer.
StepFun was founded in 2023 by Dashen Zhang (장다신), a former Microsoft vice president.
Chi-gyu Hwang
delight@d-today.co.kr