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TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has quietly built China’s most popular AI chatbot and it’s not the one most people outside the country have heard of. ByteDance’s Doubao app, now leads China’s AI race leaving its rival DeepSeek behind.
According to QuestMobile data, Doubao recorded 157 million monthly active users in August, a 6.6% increase from July. DeepSeek’s flagship chatbot, once the country’s breakout AI sensation, slipped to second place with 143 million monthly users, down 4% over the same period. Nearly 40% of users who left DeepSeek in recent months switched to Doubao, QuestMobile reported.
Launched in August 2023 by TikTok and Douyin parent company ByteDance, Doubao has grown fast by doing what ByteDance does best, turning technology into a fun, easy-to-use experience. The app greets users with a friendly animated character and offers an all-in-one platform where people can chat, create images, make videos, and even host their own mini AI agents. It’s more colorful and social than most AI tools, and it’s deeply connected to Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, letting users share AI-generated content in seconds.
ByteDance has rapidly expanded Doubao’s capabilities. Earlier this year, the app added a real-time video call assistant, allowing users to talk face-to-face with an AI companion. The company frequently integrates new features inspired by global competitors—such as 3D object generation and customizable AI agents—while tailoring them for China’s social media ecosystem.
“ByteDance is very serious about making Doubao practical,” said Li Bangzhu, founder of AI product tracker Aicpb.com. “They constantly think about what real-world problems to solve and in what scenarios, rather than simply stacking model capabilities.”
Meanwhile, DeepSeek’s chatbot which gained international fame in early 2025 after the launch of its open-source R1 reasoning model has struggled to sustain momentum. Its chatbot remains mostly text-based and lacks the visual and audio features that make Doubao appealing to everyday users.
“Doubao integrates richer functions, visual guidance, and entertainment value,” said Poe Zhao, a Beijing-based tech analyst. “That makes it far more approachable for people who are not AI experts.”
Other Chinese tech giants are racing to catch up. DeepSeek’s slowdown comes as other domestic players rise. Tencent’s Yuanbao app jumped 22% in users in August, reaching nearly 33 million monthly users, while Ant Group’s AQ health app, launched in June, surged 60% to join China’s top 10 AI apps.
Analysts say China’s AI app race has now entered a “scale-and-retain” phase, where success depends less on raw model power and more on how effectively companies integrate AI into real-world platforms and everyday routines and ByteDance’s ecosystem gives it a major head start.
“The battle for market share will be won through ecosystem reach and context-specific applications,” said Zhu Jiali, an analyst at AI Insight.
For ByteDance, that reach is vast. Doubao is tightly integrated with Douyin, letting users share AI-generated content or summon Doubao within videos—an advantage few rivals can match. With 157 million monthly users and growing, it’s becoming the AI layer of China’s everyday internet life.
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