ByteDance’s Doubao Surpasses DeepSeek to Become China’s Leading AI Chatbot
Key Points
- Doubao now leads China’s AI chatbot market with over 150 million monthly active users.
- The app features a friendly avatar and a nickname-inspired name to create a welcoming experience.
- Deep integration with Douyin enables seamless content sharing and video summarization.
- Doubao offers text, audio, video, image generation, short‑form video and custom AI agents.
- ByteDance’s expertise in viral app development gives Doubao a distribution advantage over DeepSeek.
- DeepSeek remains a text‑only chatbot with strong math capabilities but fewer multi‑modal features.
- ByteDance is planning to integrate Doubao into smart glasses, cars and other devices.
ByteDance’s Doubao app has overtaken DeepSeek to become the most popular AI chatbot in China, drawing tens of millions of monthly active users. Designed with a friendly avatar and deep integration with Douyin, Doubao offers text, audio, video, image generation and customizable agents. Analysts credit ByteDance’s expertise in viral app design and seamless cross‑platform sharing for Doubao’s rapid growth, while DeepSeek remains a more minimalist text‑only service. The company is now exploring extensions of Doubao into smart glasses, cars and other devices, signalling an ambition to broaden the AI assistant beyond smartphones.
Doubao Takes the Lead in China’s AI Chatbot Market
ByteDance’s Doubao app has risen to the top of China’s AI chatbot rankings, surpassing DeepSeek according to mobile‑app usage data. Doubao now records over 150 million monthly active users, while DeepSeek trails with roughly 140 million. The shift reflects a broader user preference for a more personable and feature‑rich experience.
Design Choices That Appeal to Mass Users
Doubao’s interface features a human‑like avatar that greets users upon opening the app, creating a warm, welcoming feel. The name itself translates to a friendly nickname, reinforcing its informal tone. Unlike many Western AI assistants that emphasize tool‑like interactions, Doubao blends chat, image creation, spreadsheet generation, short video production and voice capabilities into a single platform.
Deep Integration with Douyin and TikTok Ecosystem
One of Doubao’s strongest advantages is its tight integration with Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Users can tag Doubao in video comments to receive summaries, and the app surfaces Douyin videos directly within chatbot responses. This cross‑app synergy drives traffic between platforms and encourages social sharing of AI‑generated content, from images with a distinctive watermark to voice‑based memes.
Feature Set and Multi‑Modal Capabilities
Doubao supports text, audio and video chat, as well as image generation and short‑form video creation. It also allows users to build custom AI agents for specific scenarios and share them on the platform. The app continuously adds new functions, such as a 3‑D preset for image generation, mirroring updates from competing services.
Why Doubao Outperformed DeepSeek
Analysts point to ByteDance’s long history of creating viral mobile applications as a key factor. The company’s rapid iteration, extensive testing and ability to funnel users across its ecosystem give Doubao a distribution edge that DeepSeek, a more technically focused AI startup, lacks. DeepSeek remains primarily a text chatbot with strong math and logic performance but limited multi‑modal features and occasional server strain under heavy traffic.
Future Expansion Beyond Mobile
ByteDance is already exploring ways to embed Doubao into smart glasses, automotive systems and other devices, aiming to extend the AI assistant’s reach beyond smartphones and computers. These efforts suggest a strategic push to make Doubao a ubiquitous AI companion across a variety of hardware platforms.