ByteDance has the largest AI team in China’s tech industry and plans to spend billions of dollars building AI infrastructure this year – Copyright AFP/File Pedro PARDO
Luna Lin
After gaining global attention with its wildly popular TikTok app, Chinese technology giant ByteDance has now established itself as a major player in the rapidly evolving field of AI.
The Beijing-based company has long been embroiled in various legal and privacy issues related to social media apps, but its team has been busy developing new cutting-edge products.
Among them is Doubao, China’s most popular artificial intelligence chatbot, which has gained more than 100 million daily users since its launch in 2023.
This makes it one of the world’s largest AI query processors, along with OpenAI and Google.
Meanwhile, the cinematic clips created by its latest video generator, Seedance 2.0, have further increased the company’s international profile.
But like TikTok, ByteDance’s AI services could also face problems in overseas markets due to issues ranging from data privacy to intense competition in the space.
Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT revealed the power of AI with its debut in 2022, ByteDance believes the technology “will become an even more important application than web search,” CEO Liang Rubo said last month.
“ByteDance’s transition reflects a deliberate evolution from social media to an AI-native model,” Forrester vice president and principal analyst Charlie Dye told AFP.
He said regulations and political pressure on ByteDance’s hugely popular video-sharing app TikTok are spurring the change in direction.
Earlier this month, the European Commission said TikTok’s “addictive features” breached online content rules and ordered ByteDance to change its design or face a fine of up to 6% of its global annual revenue.
– “Evolving situation” –
The United States had threatened to ban TikTok entirely, citing concerns that it could be used to collect data on Americans and spread propaganda.
After lengthy top-level talks over a deal to sell TikTok, a majority-American-owned joint venture was formed in January to run the app’s U.S. operations, leaving ByteDance with a stake of less than 20%.
Rocky Li, who uses sites like TikTok to sell Chinese digital equipment and pet supplies to overseas buyers, was relieved by the U.S. agreement.
“I can now say to other traders, ‘You don’t have to worry anymore,'” Lee, who runs a chat group for cross-border sellers, told AFP.
Lee uses Doubao and other AI tools for a variety of tasks, including product selection, market research, and writing sales scripts.
“We used to have a dozen people on the team, but now we probably only need four or five people,” said a veteran salesman from Xi’an.
ByteDance will become U.S. chip giant Nvidia’s largest Chinese customer in 2024, and plans to spend billions of dollars buying AI microchips and building AI infrastructure in 2026.
Although less famous internationally than domestic competitors such as DeepSeek and Qwen, the Doubao model processes over 50 trillion tokens, or units of text, every day.
Google announced in October that it processes more than 1.3 quadrillion tokens each month, which equates to about 43 trillion each day.
Chen Yan, an AI industry analyst at research firm Quest Mobile, said ByteDance’s focus on AI is “a well-considered decision given the changing circumstances.”
TikTok’s strong growth will become even more difficult given its already huge user base, and “they need to explore next-generation productivity.”
– People who spend a lot of money –
Shen Qiajin is the founder of ideaFlow, an interactive content generation platform that is a heavy user of ByteDance AI models.
“They have an all-in approach with AI and are the most aggressive player in the market,” he told AFP.
ByteDance, which has the largest AI team in the Chinese technology industry, sometimes pays salaries two to three times the market average to recruit top talent, said Shen Wei, an industry headhunter.
“From a headhunter’s perspective, ByteDance’s advantage is its willingness to spend a lot of money,” he said.
ByteDance has made no secret of its intentions to replicate TikTok’s international success with its AI venture.
The Doubao team is currently led by Alex Zhu. He is the co-founder of the lip-syncing app Musical.ly, which later merged with TikTok.
This app is called Dola (formerly Cici) overseas. Like TikTok, ByteDance’s AI service could face “concerns about data governance and geopolitical friction,” Forrester’s Dai said.
While TikTok has taken over a niche, untapped market, Western AI giants are “very familiar with local regulatory frameworks and user demands,” said QuestMobile’s Chen.
Competition is intensifying at home as well. Tencent and Alibaba ran aggressive Lunar New Year promotions that propelled their chatbots to the top of Apple’s free apps chart.
Like many tech companies, ByteDance is under pressure to monetize its AI chatbot app operations.
“The real challenge for Doubao will only come after the number of daily active users exceeds 100 million,” a Doubao staff member told Chinese tech media outlet Late Post.
