Doubao, a ChatGPT-like AI app developed by TikTok owner ByteDance, has emerged as the most popular in China among a long list of competing products, even though its profit model remains unclear. The app, which was launched last August, topped the AI bot chat ranks with 51 million monthly active users (MAUs) in China, according to Aicpb.com, a website that tracks AI products. The user base was larger than Baidu’s Wenxiaoyan – formerly known as Ernie Bot – with 12.5 million users and Alibaba's Moonshot AI’s Kimi at 10 million. As Chinese regulations require government registration of AI apps before they are made available to download onto smartphones and laptops, the Chinese market is dominated by domestic products, with little presence from globally popular apps like ChatGPT, with over 180 million users.
Doubao, which is free to download and use in China, has proven popular. Apart from tasks such as writing emails or summarizing long texts, it also supports image, audio and video generation, data analysis, and AI-powered online search – a function that ChatGPT only recently acquired. The wide array of capabilities has helped Doubao become the go-to AI app for Chinese consumers. ByteDance, however, has not announced any plans to monetize the app, even though it is costly to train such applications based on large language models.
A consultant surnamed Cheng, who works in Hangzhou, said Doubao has become an effective tool for “editing and improving text”, and for its “logical organization of content”. Zhu Jiahui, a software salesperson based in Beijing, said he is a frequent user of Doubao for its easy-to-use design despite it being feature-rich. The app, accessible from its official website as well as on Android and iOS app stores, offers some of the most versatile capabilities among its local and global peers, according to analysts, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
