ByteDance's TikTok playbook is winning consumer AI

In the global battle for AI consumers, the winning app won't necessarily be the 'smartest', but the stickiest.

- Catherine Thorbecke

ByteDance is best known abroad as the embattled parent of TikTok. At home, though, it has quietly seized the crown for China's top consumer artificial intelligence (AI) app while bucking all the trends — a feat that offers lessons in the global tech race.

While generative AI is still attempting to prove its value and productivity benefits to enterprises, people worldwide have already embraced it for everything from information gathering to entertainment.

Cracking the consumer market is also proving to offer one of the clearest paths to profitability in a cash-hungry sector: By some estimates, 70 per cent of OpenAI's revenue comes from individuals paying for ChatGPT subscriptions.

ByteDance's Doubao app - an all-in-one chatbot, photo and video tool - is now China's most popular mobile AI platform. In October, more than five times as many consumers downloaded Doubao (11.4 million) compared with DeepSeek (2.2 million), according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Doubao has led the charts every month since overtaking its rival in April.