ByteDance’s Alternate AI Chatbot is Steadily Gaining Popularity Globally

ByteDance, the parent organization behind TikTok, has introduced the most popular AI chatbot in China: Doubao. Since its launch in 2023, the app has dominated the country’s generative AI landscape, amassing over 157 million monthly active users by August, according to Chinese analytics firm QuestMobile.

However, less is known about Doubao’s international counterpart: Cici. Released around the same time, it features a strikingly similar female cartoon avatar as its app icon, though Cici has longer hair than Doubao’s. The app is region-locked and unavailable in both China and the United States, contributing to its relative obscurity compared to Doubao.

Despite this, ByteDance has been discreetly promoting Cici to users in the UK, Mexico, and various Southeast Asian nations. Meta’s Ad Library indicates that Cici ran over 400 different ads in Mexico in October, primarily highlighting its math-solving capabilities and the fact that it’s completely free. Additionally, ad campaigns are currently active in the UK and the Philippines, where TikTok creators have shared numerous sponsored videos about Cici using hashtags like #ciciai.

Thanks to this marketing effort, Cici has recently experienced a noticeable rise in downloads. In regions such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico, and the UK, the app has been among the top 20 most downloaded free apps on the Google Play Store for the past three months, based on data from Sensor Tower. In Mexico, Cici has been the most downloaded free app on the Google Play Store daily over the past week. Moreover, in the UK on Thursday, it ranked as the ninth-most-popular free app in Apple’s App Store.

Cici makes minimal reference to its association with ByteDance within the app or on its website. However, the company confirmed its ownership of the apps to Forbes in 2024. Cici’s privacy policy reveals that it utilizes technology from several other ByteDance-owned platforms, such as the photo editor PicPic and coding assistant Coze. In terms of text generation, it relies on OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini rather than ByteDance’s proprietary large language models. (ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED.)

The mobile app design of Cici closely mirrors that of Doubao. Users can interact with the AI via text or audio, create and analyze images, and explore autonomous agents designed by other users. However, Cici is less sophisticated than Doubao regarding multi-modal and social features: It cannot generate music or video content, and sharing creations directly on the platform is not possible.

Since TikTok’s rise, ByteDance has faced challenges in launching another app with a similar global impact. While Cici’s international presence is still significantly lower than Doubao’s domestic success, it indicates the company’s gradual progress and willingness to invest in user acquisition. Nevertheless, without the Chinese internet regulations that inhibit competition from Western AI players, ByteDance will have to contend with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.