AsianFin -- Chinese AI firm Zhipu on Wednesday announced the launch of its next-generation AI agent application, AutoGLM 2.0, positioning itself at the forefront of the global AI competition.
This marks a major milestone for the company and the broader AI industry, as it introduces the world’s first mobile-first AI agent application, powered entirely by homegrown models.
AutoGLM 2.0 leverages Zhipu’s GLM-4.5 and GLM-4.5V models, offering advanced capabilities in reasoning, coding, multimodal processing, and more. The application is now available across all major platforms, including iOS, Android, and web, while technologies such as Agent+ and cloud phone allow it to operate seamlessly on any device. Users can now rely on AI agents for a wide array of tasks, breaking through previous hardware and platform limitations.
During a pre-release media briefing, Zhipu CEO Zhang Peng explained the shift in focus from the company’s foundational GLM 4.5 series, which primarily served enterprise and developer users, to a consumer-oriented AI agent. “With AutoGLM, it’s as if you suddenly have a team of assistants working alongside you. In the future, your abilities will no longer be determined solely by yourself, but by 1 (you) + N (multiple agents, a multi-agent system), allowing many intelligent agents to help you get things done,” Zhang said.
The timing of Zhipu’s announcement comes amid growing international attention on China’s AI industry. Just a day prior, CNBC published remarks from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman highlighting the accelerating progress of Chinese AI companies. “I'm concerned about China,” Altman said, warning that U.S. export restrictions have not curtailed the country’s advancements. He noted that China’s capabilities in reasoning, technological exploration, and foundational AI may be expanding more rapidly than many anticipate.
Statistics underline the scale of China’s AI growth. In 2024, the Chinese AI market exceeded 700 billion yuan, maintaining annual growth above 20% for several years. As of March 2025, 346 generative AI services had completed regulatory filings, and China’s DeepSeek application became the world’s fastest-growing generative AI platform by user growth. These developments indicate that the AI competition between China and the US is intensifying across both technology and application domains.
Over the past three years, Zhipu has steadily evolved its agent platform. Beginning with the launch of AgentBench in April 2023, followed by All Tools in January 2024—which allowed automatic invocation of code interpreters, web browsers, and text-to-image tools—the company laid the groundwork for more sophisticated AI agents. April 2024 saw the release of AutoWebGLM and partnerships with hardware giants such as Qualcomm, Samsung, Intel, HONOR, and ASUS, advancing large model deployment across devices and intelligent assistants.
In November 2024, Zhipu unveiled AutoGLM and GLM-PC at its GLM OpenDay event. AutoGLM became the company’s first consumer-facing agent, capable of simulating human smartphone operations through text or voice commands, effectively bridging the gap from “language” to “action.” GLM-PC focused on desktop applications, using visual reasoning and task planning to autonomously execute complex instructions. These early products demonstrated Zhipu’s ability to integrate task planning, tool use, and self-correction into large AI models.
