Honor Underlines Commitment to Foldables and Proposes AI Device Ecosystem Alliance

At MWC Shanghai 2025, a notable keynote session focused on AI Innovation and Impact and included Honor’s charismatic CEO, James Li, as one of the panellists.

The imminent launch of the company’s latest foldable smartphone, the Honor Magic V5, on 2 July provided Mr Li the opportunity to further articulate his vision of the central role AI will play on smartphones in the future, something he first spoke about in March 2025 at Honor’s media launch at MWC Barcelona (see Honor Embraces Open Collaboration on AI with $10 Billion Alpha Plan).

The ultraslim design of the Magic V5 smartphone is likely to capture the headlines at launch, but Mr Li emphasized that the device is Honor’s most-advanced phone yet for AI capabilities. He firmly believes the next AI battleground will “take place in users’ pockets”, given the central role of smartphones in people’s everyday lives.

Honor has long championed agentic AI, which has become an industry-wide theme over the past 18 months. Honor believes the industry needs to move beyond the focus on specific model parameters and deliver a user experience that offers tangible value to consumers by integrating AI into everyday scenarios, such as creating and sharing a presentation across multiple devices and with other users. This is an opportune moment to articulate a strong AI vision, particularly given Apple’s slower-than-expected roll-out of the agentic AI capabilities it had promised with Apple Intelligence.

Mr Li further outlined his vision of delivering AI based on three principles: scenario-based actions, trust and performance.

The scenario-based action approach aims to deliver a smartphone experience that offers a more intuitive and frictionless user journey to help complete tasks more easily. Agentic AI can help abstract a user request from specific applications and deliver a more holistic solution to break down the more traditional, siloed approach to smartphone interactions.

Trust is regularly discussed regarding AI, and Mr Li made it clear that Honor is committed to offering a “reliable, trustworthy and controllable AI application environment” to provide a sense of security as users take their first steps toward agentic interactions with a smartphone. Given consumer nervousness about AI, this is a sensible approach as it touches on the devices and services they use daily.

Finally, regarding performance, Honor is working extensively with partners to deliver cutting-edge silicon platforms and the latest on-device AI models. These are all foundations to Honor’s broader software and services architecture, which includes its MagicRing platform.

In a surprise announcement, Mr Li revealed plans to establish an “AI device ecosystem alliance”. He hopes to partner with network operators, AI model companies, other device-makers and internet companies to share learnings on delivering market-leading AI-powered devices. This is a bold direction, and Mr Li will hope to build on the support he secured at MWC in Barcelona, where he was joined on stage by leading network operators, CK Hutchison, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone; chipmaker Qualcomm, which offers on-device AI capabilities through its Snapdragon platform; and Google, which provides the Android platform that is foundational to Honor’s devices.

In a market dominated by Apple and Samsung, Honor is working hard to establish itself as the preferred Chinese manufacturer for operators looking for disruptive new devices as part of their product portfolios. Mr Li’s bold vision of leading an ecosystem alliance is a clear statement of intent; however, it may prove more challenging than expected. That said, leading the conversation and addressing areas such as security and trust are essential for the whole industry when it comes to supporting agentic AI experiences on the latest flagship devices. Honor is determined to be a significant part of that story.