We all must hate
Booking a table in a restaurantis another problem that tech companies are trying solve with artificial intelligence. Honor has unveiled Honor UI Agent, a “GUI based mobile AI agent”, which claims to be able to perform tasks on behalf of the user by understanding the graphical user interface. Its primary demonstration to demonstrate this capability? The agent will book a restaurant through OpenTable.
WIRED was able to see the demo before the company’s keynote presentation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona 2025, where Honor announced its $10 billion Honor Alpha Plan. This long-term strategy, envisioned by Jian Li, the new CEO of the Chinese company, is lofty, largely corporate-speak and consists of lofty goals such as “creating an Intelligent Phone” and “open human potential boundaries and cocreate a new paradigm for civilization.” What it really highlights is Honor’s quick pivot into prioritizing AI development for its suite of personal technology devices.
A GUI Agent
In the demo, an Honor spokesperson asked Honor’s UI Agent to book a table for four people, gave a time, and specified “local food.” (The AI takes location into account and understood that to mean Spanish food here in Barcelona.) What happens next is a little jarring—not in the way Google’s Duplex technology was when it debuted in 2018 and had Google Assistant interact with real humans to make reservations on your behalf.
Instead, you’re forced to stare at Honor’s screen, watching this agent run through the steps of finding a restaurant and booking a table through the OpenTable app. It doesn’t quite feel “smart” ” when you need to see the dull machinations at work. Honor told me that in the future, its UI Agent will not have to show its homework.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
The system chose a restaurant, but couldn’t finish the process because the chosen spot required a credit to confirm a booking. At that point, the user took over. You can be flexible with your query. For example, if you asked it to book a restaurant that was “highly rated”, it would only look at reviews that had high scores. The agent does not do any further research. It is not comparing OpenTable reviews to data from other places on the web. This is especially true since all data is processed locally and not sent to the cloud.
Agentic artificial intelligence, or AI, is the current buzzword for the tech world. Will Knight, a colleague of mine, recently tested an AI assistant which could browse the internet and perform online tasks. Google released its Gemini 2 AI model late last year, which is trained to perform actions on behalf of the user. It also revives the idea of an generative user interface on smartphones. At MWC 2024 we saw some companies working on ways to interact without apps, instead relying on AI assistants that generate a user-interface as you issue a command.
Honor’s approach is similar to what Rabbit, of the infamous Rabbit R1, is doing with Teach Mode. You train its assistant manually in order to complete a particular task. No need to use the application programming interface (API) of an app, which is how apps and services traditionally communicate. The agent memorizes a process that allows you to issue a command and have the agent execute the task.
Honor’s self-reliant AI model isn’t programmed to follow strict steps. It’s capable of multimodal context recognition and can perform tasks independently. It is not necessary to train the assistant on every aspect of the OpenTable application. Instead, it can understand the semantic elements and follow-through a multi-step procedure to execute your request. Honor said that this was a more cost-effective process: “Unlike competitors like Apple, Samsung, or Google, who rely on external APIs, resulting in higher operating costs, Honor’s AI Agent manages a variety of tasks independently.”
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Honor’s UI agent leverages Google’s Gemini 2 Large Language Model, which powers the intent recognition and “enhanced understanding” of the content on the screen. Google has not revealed any details about the collaboration.
Honor claims that it has partnered with Qualcomm in order to store data on the device, and develop a knowledge base which learns your preferences as time goes by. If you order certain types of food on a delivery app and ask the agent to do it for you, it will use this context to choose something you know you like. The company claims that it has already employed some of these AI agents.
Honor announced at its keynote that it would deliver seven years’ worth of software updates to its flagship Magic 7 Pro, and upcoming devices. This is in line with the policies of Google and Samsung regarding software updates on their Pixel and Galaxy smartphones.
Honor also unveiled several new gadgets during the show, including the Honor Earbuds Open smartwatch, Honor Pad V9, and Honor MagicBook Pro 14 notebook. These devices will not be sold in the US like most Honor products, but they will be available in some other markets. The brand hosted WIRED for its media event at MWC 2020 and paid a portion of the reporter’s travel costs.
