Xiaomi (小米) rolls out Xiaomi miclaw agent in small closed test; netizens joke about crayfish craze

Product launch and promise

Xiaomi (小米) has quietly opened a small-scale closed test of Xiaomi miclaw, an AI agent built on its MiMo large model, the company announced. It has been reported that the tool can turn a smartphone into a proactive AI assistant that, once authorised, can call third‑party apps and system tools to complete user commands and even carry context across multi‑step tasks. Will your phone finally do your heavy lifting? Xiaomi frames miclaw as an early step in a broader push to embed AI across its “people‑car‑home” ecosystem.

Capabilities and privacy claims

Xiaomi says the current miclaw packages “50+” system capabilities and ecosystem services and can allegedly remember users, interpret fuzzy instructions, and persist task context through long sequences — reportedly even across 20 consecutive steps. It has been reported that user interactions during everyday use are confined to real‑time command execution and are not put into training pools, with core private data prioritised for on‑device handling and “edge‑cloud privacy computation” used to avoid uploading sensitive information.

Wider context: jobs, geopolitics and a crayfish quip

Founder Lei Jun (雷军) told users that AI will create many new opportunities while displacing some existing jobs, and urged entrepreneurs and consumers to embrace the change. He tied the message to a lighter cultural moment — referencing a recent craze for raising crayfish — and it has been reported that netizens joked that raising and then abandoning crustaceans is “asking for trouble.” The miclaw rollout also arrives against a backdrop of global AI competition and chip export controls; Chinese device makers are accelerating on‑device intelligence and domestic models to hedge against supply‑chain and policy risks.