ByteDance’s AI chatbot is quietly on the rise around the world

ByteDance, parent TikTok has created what is currently the most popular AI chatbot in China: Doubao. Launched in 2023, the app rose to the top of the country’s generative AI market, reaching more than 157 million monthly active users as of August, according to a report by Chinese analytics firm QuestMobile.

But what is less known is that Doubao also has a foreign counterpart: Cici. It was released around the same time and features an almost identical female cartoon avatar as its app icon, except Cici has longer hair than Doubao. The app is region-locked and not available in China or the US, which explains why it’s even more obscure than Doubao.

But ByteDance has been quietly marketing Cici to users in the UK, Mexico and several Southeast Asian countries. Meta’s ad library shows that Sisi ran more than 400 different ads in Mexico in October, most of which boast the model’s ability to solve math problems and the fact that it’s completely free to use. It is also currently running advertising campaigns in the UK and the Philippines. On TikTok, creators in those countries have shared dozens of sponsored videos about Cici using hashtags like #ciciai.

Thanks to that marketing push, Cici’s app downloads have seen a significant increase recently. In markets including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico and the United Kingdom, the app has been among the top 20 free apps downloaded on the Google Play Store for the past three months, according to data from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm. For example, in Mexico, Cici has had the most free downloads on the Google Play Store every day for the past week. In the UK on Thursday, Cici was the ninth most popular free app in the Apple App Store.

Cici makes almost no mention of its association with ByteDance anywhere on its app or website, but the Chinese company previously confirmed its control over the apps to Forbes in 2024. According to Cici’s privacy policy disclosure, the company relies on technology from several other platforms owned by ByteDance, such as the PicPic photo editor and programming assistant. But when it comes to text generation, it uses OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini, rather than ByteDance’s proprietary large language models. (ByteDance did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.)

The design of the Cici mobile app is also similar to Doubao. Users can chat with the AI ​​using text or voice, generate and analyze images, and try out autonomous agents generated by other users. But Cici is less advanced than Doubao when it comes to multifaceted and social features: it lacks the ability to produce music and video content, and users cannot share their creations directly on the platform.

Ever since TikTok launched, ByteDance has struggled to produce another app with the same global impact. Cici’s international influence is still far from Doubao’s domestic dominance, but it shows that the company is steadily making inroads and is willing to spend to attract new users. But without Chinese internet rules blocking competition from Western AI players, ByteDance will have to go head-to-head with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.