Chinese Open-Source Models Gain Traction

Tether AI launches BotPsy, a sub-billion agentic model

Tether AI Research has released BotPsy, an 0.8B-parameter model built on Qwen3.5 that specializes in tool-use and agentic workflows for on-device deployment. It achieves state-of-the-art performance in its size class, outperforming larger models like Qwen3.5-2B-Think on benchmarks such as BFCL v4 and ACEBench while maintaining strict privacy by keeping data local. The model is designed to handle routine tasks like calendar management and web search without relying on expensive cloud APIs, offering a viable path for private, self-hosted personal assistants. With open weights under Apache 2.0 and GGUF support, it provides immediate utility for developers building lightweight, autonomous agents.