Honor already has a number of smartphones on the market that fold like a book, like the Magic V2 launched in July 2023 shown here. The Chinese tech company is now preparing to launch a vertically foldable smartphone, CEO George Zhao told CNBC at the Mobile World Congress.
honor
Chinese smartphone maker Honor on Wednesday became one of the first device makers to announce that it will bring Google's artificial intelligence features to its upcoming devices.
Honor will integrate AI experiences into its upcoming devices, which will be powered by Google Cloud, the company said.
A spokesperson for the Chinese company told CNBC that this will include Google's AI Assistant Gemini, as well as Imagen 2, a text-to-image tool.
Smartphone makers are trying to bring AI features to their phones, in a bid to push users to upgrade to their latest flagship devices.
The integration with Google's AI features relies on Honor already running the American company's Android operating system on its smartphones. Designing advanced generative AI features can be difficult for individual smartphone manufacturers, so the partnership with Google gives them a shortcut to the latest generative AI applications using the technology.
Honor is among the few companies to commit to Google's AI tools. In January, Samsung announced a partnership with Google Cloud to bring Gemini Pro and Imagine 2 to its devices.
Honor has been talking about AI features in its devices this year. In February, the company launched the Magic 6 Pro phone with a feature powered by the company's artificial intelligence that allows users to open the application by simply looking at their phone. The user can squint when a notification appears at the top of the screen, prompting the eye-tracking technology to open the relevant app.
