- The upgraded AI agent adds long-term memory and tools to carry out tasks across messaging and smart-home systems
- Ant says the new version remains in limited testing, with a wider release planned for October
Ant Group has begun limited testing of an upgraded version of Lingguang, positioning the Chinese AI assistant as a domestic answer to Muse, Meta’s wide popular personal AI agent.
The upgrade is designed to take Lingguang beyond chat and app generation, enabling it to remember user preferences and carry out tasks autonomously.
The development was first reported by Sina Tech on October 11, citing people familiar with the project.
Ant confirmed that Lingguang had recently received feature upgrades but said the new version remained in testing with a very small group of users.
From answers to actions
The new version uses Skills and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to connect with external tools, enabling tasks such as sending messages through DingTalk and controlling smart-home devices.
Skills define what an AI agent can do, while MCP provides a standardized way to connect it with external services and tools.
Testing has focused on tasks that involve changing conditions and require sustained attention.
Examples include tracking market movements for office workers, managing children’s DingTalk check-ins for parents, and rerouting trips when flights are delayed or tourist attractions impose crowd limits.
Development began about six months ago, with several versions tested along the way. Ant plans to open the upgraded product to a broader audience this month.
Following Meta’s Muse
Meta launched Muse in the US on September 8. The personal AI agent can handle tasks such as shopping, booking reservations, sending emails and filling out forms, while continuing to work in the background and notifying users when needed.
Muse gained nearly 600,000 downloads in its first week and has since surpassed 2.5 million, according to Sensor Tower figures cited in the report.
It briefly topped Apple’s US App Store free-app chart. Meta offers basic access for free, with subscriptions costing $20 or $100 a month for heavier use.
Ant first launched Lingguang in November 2025 as a multimodal general-purpose AI assistant. It can generate simple applications from natural-language prompts in about 30 seconds and surpassed one million downloads within four days of launch.
The latest upgrade signals a broader shift in Ant’s AI strategy: from tools that answer questions or generate content toward agents that can carry out tasks on users’ behalf.
Its wider rollout will show how reliably Lingguang can manage multi-step tasks across different services.
Header image credit: Ant Group
