ByteDance’s Other AI Chatbot Is Quietly Gaining Traction Around the World

ByteDance, nan parent institution of TikTok, has built what is presently nan astir celebrated AI chatbot successful China: Doubao. Launched successful 2023, nan app has risen to nan apical of nan country’s generative AI market, reaching much than 157 cardinal monthly progressive users by August, according to Chinese analytics patient QuestMobile.

But what’s little known is that Doubao besides has an overseas counterpart: Cici. It was released astir nan aforesaid clip and features a astir identical female animation avatar arsenic its app icon, isolated from Cici’s has longer hairsbreadth than Doubao’s. The app is region-locked and not disposable successful either China aliases nan United States, which explains why it’s moreover much obscure than Doubao.

But ByteDance has been softly trading Cici to users successful nan United Kingdom, Mexico, and respective Southeast Asian countries. Meta’s Ad Library shows that Cici was moving complete 400 different ads successful Mexico successful October, astir of which boasted astir nan model’s expertise to lick mathematics problems and nan truth that it’s wholly free to use. It’s besides presently moving advertisement campaigns successful nan UK and Philippines. On TikTok, creators successful those countries person shared dozens of sponsored videos astir Cici utilizing hashtags for illustration #ciciai.

Thanks to that trading push, downloads of nan Cici app person seen a noticeable summation recently. In markets including Indonesia, Malaysia, nan Philippines, Mexico, and nan UK, nan app has been ranking wrong nan apical 20 astir downloaded free apps connected nan Google Play Store for nan past 3 months, according to information from Sensor Tower, a marketplace intelligence firm. In Mexico, for example, Cici has been nan astir downloaded free app connected nan Google Play Store each time for nan past week. In nan UK connected Thursday, Cici was nan ninth-most-popular free app successful Apple’s App Store.

Cici makes almost nary mention of its ties to ByteDance anyplace successful nan app aliases connected its website, but nan Chinese institution antecedently confirmed its power of nan apps to Forbes successful 2024. According to Cici’s privacy argumentation disclosure, it relies connected exertion from respective different ByteDance-owned platforms, for illustration nan photograph editor PicPic and coding adjunct Coze. But erstwhile it comes to generating text, it uses OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini—not ByteDance’s proprietary ample connection models. (ByteDance did not respond to a petition for remark from WIRED.)

The creation of Cici’s mobile app looks identical to Doubao’s, too. Users tin chat pinch nan AI utilizing matter aliases audio, make and analyse images, and effort autonomous agents generated by different users. But Cici is little precocious than Doubao erstwhile it comes to multi-modal and societal features: It lacks nan capacity to make euphony and video content, and users can’t stock their creations straight connected nan platform.

Since TikTok took off, ByteDance has struggled to nutrient different app pinch nan aforesaid world impact. Cici’s world power is still acold from Doubao’s home dominance, but it shows that nan institution is steadily making inroads and is consenting to walk connected caller personification acquisition. But without nan Chinese net regulations that artifact title from Western AI players, ByteDance will person to spell head-to-head pinch OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.