ByteDance, the maker of TikTok, went all in on AI
ByteDance Bets Big on AI as Doubao Crosses 100 Million Daily Users
Beijing: After soaring to global prominence with its hit video-sharing app TikTok, Chinese tech giant ByteDance is aggressively positioning itself as a major force in the fast-evolving artificial intelligence (AI) landscape.
While TikTok has faced years of legal and privacy scrutiny across multiple markets, ByteDance has been quietly expanding its AI ambitions. At the centre of this push is Doubao, China’s most popular AI chatbot, which has amassed more than 100 million daily active users since its launch in 2023.
The scale places Doubao among the world’s largest AI query processors, alongside platforms developed by OpenAI and Google. According to company data, Doubao models process over 50 trillion tokens daily, while Google said in October it handles around 1.3 quadrillion tokens per month — roughly 43 trillion per day.
ByteDance has also drawn attention with Seedance 2.0, its latest AI-powered video generation tool capable of producing cinematic-quality clips, further raising its international profile.
Pivot From Social Media to AI
Since the 2022 debut of ChatGPT demonstrated AI’s transformative potential, ByteDance has viewed the technology as a critical long-term bet. CEO Liang Rubo said last month that the company believes AI “would become an even more important application than web search.”
Analysts say regulatory pressures on TikTok have accelerated the company’s pivot.
Earlier this month, the European Commission said TikTok’s “addictive features” breached online content rules and warned of fines of up to six percent of ByteDance’s annual global revenue unless changes were made. In the United States, TikTok faced threats of a full ban over data security concerns before a majority-American-owned joint venture was established in January to operate its US business, with ByteDance retaining less than a 20% stake.
“ByteDance’s shift reflects a deliberate evolution from social media toward an AI-native model,” said Charlie Dai, vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester.
AI Adoption and Commercial Push
Doubao is already reshaping small businesses. Rocky Lee, a cross-border e-commerce seller from Xi’an, said he uses Doubao and other AI tools for product selection, market research and sales script-writing.
“We used to have more than a dozen people in our team. Now I reckon maybe four to five people are sufficient,” Lee told AFP.
ByteDance was US chip giant Nvidia’s largest Chinese client in 2024 and plans to invest billions of dollars in AI microchips and infrastructure in 2026.
Despite Doubao’s scale, international expansion may prove challenging. Analysts warn of potential hurdles including data governance concerns, geopolitical tensions and stiff competition from Western AI leaders and domestic rivals such as DeepSeek and Qwen.
At home, competition is intensifying as Tencent and Alibaba push aggressive promotions for their own AI chatbots.
Big Spending on Talent
Industry insiders say ByteDance is adopting an “all-in” AI strategy, often paying salaries two to three times the market average to attract top talent. The Doubao team is now led by Alex Zhu, co-founder of Musical.ly, the lip-syncing app that later merged with TikTok. Overseas, the app operates under the name Dola, previously known as Cici.
However, monetisation remains a key challenge.
“The real challenge for Doubao is only coming after it has surpassed 100 million daily active users,” a company staffer told Chinese tech outlet The Late Post.
As growth in TikTok’s user base matures, analysts say ByteDance’s long-term trajectory may increasingly hinge on whether its AI ambitions can replicate the global success of its social media empire — this time in a far more competitive and politically sensitive arena.
