Honor, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer, unveiled the integration of its Yoyo virtual assistant with the DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence model on Saturday. This makes Honor the first Android brand to incorporate this AI technology into its devices. The integration allows Yoyo to utilize the reasoning capabilities of the model, enabling it to perform more sophisticated tasks. Recently, Perplexity and Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry have also adopted the DeepSeek-R1 model into their platforms. Currently, the Yoyo assistant is exclusively accessible in China.
DeepSeek-R1 Integrated With Honor’s Yoyo Assistant
In a Weibo post, Honor’s official account announced the new features now available through the Yoyo assistant. The large language model is compatible with devices running MagicOS 8.0 and newer, requiring Yoyo assistant version 80.0.1.503 or higher.
DeepSeek in the Yoyo smart store
Photo Credit: Weibo/Honor
To access DeepSeek-R1, users in China will need to navigate to the Yoyo smart store and locate the model to start a dialogue. The welcome screen for DeepSeek features the message: “I am an intelligent agent based on the open-source version of the DeepSeek-R1, dedicated to providing users an immersive deep thinking experience, assisting them in exploring knowledge, solving problems, and igniting creativity,” according to a report from Huawei Central.
The new integration is currently in beta testing, which may lead to some bugs and glitches that could disrupt the user experience. Honor stated that DeepSeek-R1 aims to enhance the virtual assistant’s natural language capabilities, logical reasoning, and understanding of complex commands. The company also revealed that Yoyo has over 130 million monthly active users.
DeepSeek-R1 is designed as a reasoning-focused model that offers chain-of-thought (CoT) transparency, enabling users to follow the AI’s thought process as it addresses complex problems, revises its answers, and validates its conclusions through alternative methods. Honor did not provide information on whether this AI model can interact with or gather information from other applications.
At this time, the rollout is limited to China, leaving it uncertain if Honor plans to expand the availability of the open-source AI model to international markets. The Chinese AI model has come under scrutiny for security issues, as a cybersecurity firm discovered links in the DeepSeek chatbot’s source code to a previously banned Chinese telecom company in the US. The Australian government and Italian regulators have already prohibited the use of the AI platform.
