ByteDance, the dad or mum firm of TikTok, has constructed what’s presently the preferred AI chatbot in China: Doubao. Launched in 2023, the app has risen to the highest of the nation’s generative AI market, reaching greater than 157 million month-to-month lively customers by August, in line with Chinese language analytics agency QuestMobile.
However what’s much less recognized is that Doubao additionally has an abroad counterpart: Cici. It was launched across the similar time and includes a practically similar feminine cartoon avatar as its app icon, besides Cici’s has longer hair than Doubao’s. The app is region-locked and never obtainable in both China or the US, which explains why it’s much more obscure than Doubao.
However ByteDance has been quietly advertising Cici to customers in the UK, Mexico, and a number of other Southeast Asian international locations. Meta’s Advert Library reveals that Cici was operating over 400 completely different adverts in Mexico in October, most of which boasted in regards to the mannequin’s capacity to unravel math issues and the truth that it’s fully free to make use of. It’s additionally presently operating advert campaigns within the UK and Philippines. On TikTok, creators in these international locations have shared dozens of sponsored movies about Cici utilizing hashtags like #ciciai.
Because of that advertising push, downloads of the Cici app have seen a noticeable improve not too long ago. In markets together with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico, and the UK, the app has been rating throughout the prime 20 most downloaded free apps on the Google Play Retailer for the previous three months, in line with knowledge from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence agency. In Mexico, for instance, Cici has been probably the most downloaded free app on the Google Play Retailer every single day for the previous week. Within the UK on Thursday, Cici was the ninth-most-popular free app in Apple’s App Retailer.
Cici makes nearly no point out of its ties to ByteDance anyplace within the app or on its web site, however the Chinese language firm beforehand confirmed its management of the apps to Forbes in 2024. Based on Cici’s privateness coverage disclosure, it depends on expertise from a number of different ByteDance-owned platforms, just like the photograph editor PicPic and coding assistant Coze. However in relation to producing textual content, it makes use of OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini—not ByteDance’s proprietary massive language fashions. (ByteDance didn’t reply to a request for remark from WIRED.)
The design of Cici’s cellular app appears to be like similar to Doubao’s, too. Customers can chat with the AI utilizing textual content or audio, generate and analyze photographs, and check out autonomous brokers generated by different customers. However Cici is much less superior than Doubao in relation to multi-modal and social options: It lacks the potential to generate music and video content material, and customers can’t share their creations instantly on the platform.
Since TikTok took off, ByteDance has struggled to supply one other app with the identical international affect. Cici’s worldwide affect continues to be removed from Doubao’s home dominance, however it reveals that the corporate is steadily making inroads and is prepared to spend on new person acquisition. However with out the Chinese language web rules that block competitors from Western AI gamers, ByteDance should go head-to-head with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.