Can Luo Yonghao’s new AI battlefield break the “industry death light” curse?

First, it was revealed on March 4 that in order to realize the entrepreneurial concept of the AIOS system, Luo Yonghao poached Wang Wenjun, Xiaomi's former 50th employee and a veteran in the operating system field; then on March 10, Luo Yonghao posted a recruitment information on his personal Weibo, and his AR startup company Thin Red Line Technology (Thin Red Line) launched the 2025 spring recruitment. The full-time positions open in the software product department are all product manager positions, and the work locations are located in Shanghai and Beijing.

Image source: Weibo screenshot

As another technology startup that Luo Yonghao has invested in after Smartisan Technology, Fine Red Line Technology carries Luo Yonghao's ambition to impact the technology field again . However, unlike Smartisan Technology, which focuses on the smartphone market, Fine Red Line Technology focuses on the future interaction method combining AI and AR, and is committed to building the next generation of personal computing device platform after smartphones.

Although the company has been established for some time (founded in June 2022), it has been relatively low-key in the past and has not disclosed too many product details to the outside world. With the joining of veteran Wang Wenjun and the announcement of spring recruitment information, it may mean that Xihongxian Technology's products have entered a new stage of development.

In any case, every entrepreneurial attempt of Luo Yonghao is always interesting. However, there has always been a joke about Luo Yonghao being the "industry's dead light". From smartphones to social software, from e-cigarettes to live streaming, Luo Yonghao has almost always stepped into the "trend", but then either he himself failed or the industry entered a cold winter.

Today, AI and AR are both on the cusp of the trend, and global technology giants have stepped up their investments. Hopefully, this time, Luo Yonghao can break the curse of the "industry's dark light" and make Thin Red Line Technology a "beacon" in the AI ​​era.

"This should be my last entrepreneurial venture, and I will put everything I have into it." When Luo Yonghao became the "No. 1 TikTok influencer" in 2022, no one expected that he would come up with the idea of ​​starting a business again.

At that time, Luo Yonghao suddenly announced that he would stop broadcasting TikTok, and posted on Weibo that he had officially withdrawn from all social platforms. He then immersed himself in starting his own business again, and introduced his AR startup company "Thin Red Line Technology" to the public, claiming that he wanted to create a product like Apple products.

After that, Luo Yonghao began to raise funds everywhere to expand the scale. "Tianyancha" shows that in November 2022, Xihongxian Technology announced that it had completed an angel round of financing of approximately US$50 million, with a post-investment valuation of US$200 million. This round of financing was led by Meituan Longzhu, and well-known investment institutions such as BlueRun Ventures, Lenovo Capital, Matrix Partners, and DJI Innovations, as well as technology industry figures such as Li Wanqiang and Wu Yongming, followed suit.

At the same time, Xihongxian Technology also implemented a large-scale recruitment plan in the second half of 2022 and offered high salaries; according to "Qujie Business", the team size once reached more than 150 people, and Luo Yonghao envisioned a team size of thousands of people.

However, in 2023, the first-generation prototype of AR glasses created by Thin Red Line was exposed by the media that it was too heavy to be mass-produced, the software did not run, there were too many bugs that were difficult to solve, and its AR system was always in an unfinished state, causing the research and development process to almost come to a standstill.

Luo Yonghao was not discouraged. With the rise of large language models, especially the launch of ChatGPT, he saw new hope. According to a previous report by the new media "New Vision", an internal employee of Xihongxian revealed that "at that time, the software team suddenly suspended the ongoing work. Lao Luo responded very quickly and immediately instructed the software team to develop an AI application demo ." As a result, the development focus of Xihongxian Technology shifted from AR to the field of AI.

In the first quarter of 2024, Xihongxian Technology set the direction of software development as AI Agent, and subsequently recruited AI-related positions such as large model algorithm engineers and AI product managers. In August of the same year, at the live broadcast of the fourth anniversary of "Make Friends", Luo Yonghao officially announced that a new product would be launched in September, and emphasized that it was "disruptive and destructive innovation." However, after whetting the appetite of the outside world, the new product mentioned by Luo Yonghao was not announced as scheduled.

Image source: Screenshot of BOSS Direct Hiring

The transition of Xihongxian Technology from AR to AI is not smooth sailing. According to "Fun Business", Xihongxian Technology is still actively recruiting AI search engineers, AI engineering R&D engineers and other talents. Their main tasks are to build a new generation of AI search engines and participate in the design and implementation of AI product infrastructure.

On January 5, 2025, Luo Yonghao's AI project finally came to fruition. He released a new software product "J1 Assistant" AI assistant overseas. If nothing goes wrong, this will be the first AI smart product incubated by Xihongxian Technology.

The most distinctive feature of J1 Assistant is that it is driven by voice interaction. It can simultaneously support multiple functions such as Chatbot, notes, Todo (to-do list) and AI search. Its cleverness lies in the integration of voice input, automatic recognition and multi-scenario operation logic, allowing users to call AI in the most natural way .

This new AI product has made many Hammer fans eager to try it out. Unfortunately, this product is only available in the beat version overseas, and cannot be accessed on the domestic network. It is also only available for download on some Samsung Galaxy S series and Google Pixel series models.

Image source: J1 Assistant screenshot

Under such limited conditions, J1 Assistant did not cause a sensation in the outside world, and some netizens found that it still had a strong "Hammer flavor". From the interface design to the interaction method, it inherited the classic "skeuomorphism" style of the Hammer mobile phone back then.

In terms of product capabilities, J1 Assistant still has many flaws. No matter what the context or text is, J1 Assistant basically has no context memory ability. It is difficult for users to use natural language to tell it what to do, and the generation speed is indeed a bit slow.

However, J1 Assistant may just be a small test for Luo Yonghao. According to the plan, there may be another AI hardware product called JARVIS ONE . And Luo Yonghao's real goal is to create a real AI hardware product through the AIOS system .

Previously, some fans of Hammer phones said that they have used many models of phones, including Hammer T1, Nut R1, Nut R2, etc., but are now facing the dilemma of choosing a new phone because Hammer Technology has not launched a new phone for a long time, and are considering switching to the Xiaomi brand. Surprisingly, this news was personally responded to by Luo Yonghao himself.

When Luo Yonghao forwarded the netizen's message, he commented: " It is meaningless to simply make mobile phones, but for AIOS... those who really care about software often choose to make their own hardware ." This statement immediately triggered speculation and discussion among many netizens. One netizen excitedly said: "Really? I want a beautiful phone!" Luo Yonghao replied affirmatively: "Well, beauty is just the basics."

Image source: Weibo screenshot

From Luo Yonghao's statement, it is not difficult to see that he is still working hard to promote his AI entrepreneurial dream. From recruiting operating system veteran Wang Wenjun, to investing heavily in AI talents, to the launch of J1 Assistant, all of these show his firm commitment to this goal.

But the reality is that can Luo Yonghao's AIOS system achieve the so-called "disruptive and disruptive innovation" breakthrough? Before that, can Xihongxian Technology, which has switched to the AI ​​field, survive this "AI elimination game"?

For Luo Yonghao, this may really be his "last time to start a business", after all, the difficulty is even much greater than when he started his business with Hammer smartphones. And this time, can he still bring surprises like he did back then?