Where is Doubao headquartered?

Doubao is headquartered in Beijing, China. The company has a team of 500+ people.

Doubao operates in the Foundation Models / LLMs sector. ByteDance's flagship AI assistant and China's most popular AI chatbot, powered by the Seed large language model family. China's most widely used AI assistant offering free chatbot, writing, and multimodal capabilities, now expanding into a tiered productivity platform with agent-driven task execution for workplace professionals.

When was Doubao founded?

Doubao was founded in 2023. It is based in Beijing, China.

Who is the CEO of Doubao?

Liang Rubo is the CEO of Doubao. The company was founded in 2023.

Where is Doubao located?

Doubao is headquartered in Beijing, China.

What funding stage is Doubao at?

Doubao is currently at the Active stage.

How many employees does Doubao have?

Doubao has approximately 500+ employees.

Doubao

Category: Foundation Models / LLMs

ByteDance's flagship AI assistant and China's most popular AI chatbot, powered by the Seed large language model family. Doubao was founded in 2023. The company is led by Liang Rubo. Based in Beijing, China. Team size: 500+. Latest round: Undisclosed. Key investors include ByteDance (parent company, privately held), Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital China, Coatue Management.

Founded: 2023
Headquarters: Beijing, China
Team size: 500+

Value proposition

China's most widely used AI assistant offering free chatbot, writing, and multimodal capabilities, now expanding into a tiered productivity platform with agent-driven task execution for workplace professionals.

Products and solutions

Doubao Free (basic AI assistant), Doubao Professional Edition (paid tier with agent-driven office task mode, 68/200/500 yuan monthly), Doubao Seed 2.0/2.1 Pro model family (including Seed-Code, Seedance video generation, Seedream image generation), Doubao smartphone, Doubao integrated into 145+ car models via Volcano Engine

Unique value

Largest user base of any Chinese AI app (345M MAU), deep integration with ByteDance ecosystem (Douyin, Feishu), and the most comprehensive multimodal capabilities spanning text, image, video, and speech — all powered by the Seed model family with native Chinese language excellence.

Target customer

Consumer: general Chinese internet users seeking AI assistance. Enterprise: businesses via Volcano Engine MaaS platform; automotive OEMs for in-car AI; developers via API access.

Industries served

Consumer AI, Enterprise AI/MaaS, Automotive (in-car AI assistants), E-commerce (Douyin integration), Education, Software Development

Technology advantage

Powered by ByteDance Seed team's advanced Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture with 256K context window; native multimodal capabilities (text, image, video, speech); deep integration with ByteDance's massive compute infrastructure (180 trillion tokens/day as of June 2026); lowest user acquisition cost of any ByteDance product reaching 100M DAU; proprietary Seedance video generation and Seedream image generation models.

How they differentiate

Doubao differentiates through: (1) massive scale — 345M MAU, far exceeding any Chinese competitor; (2) ByteDance ecosystem integration (Douyin, Feishu, TikTok); (3) lowest-cost user acquisition in ByteDance history; (4) strongest multimodal capabilities among Chinese AI assistants; (5) aggressive monetization via tiered subscription model while keeping basic features free; (6) deep automotive integration across 50+ brands and 145+ car models.

Main competitors

DeepSeek (open-weight reasoning model leader), Kimi by Moonshot AI (long-context specialist), Baidu Ernie Bot (enterprise API leader), Alibaba Qwen (fast-growing competitor), Tencent Yuanbao

Key partnerships

Volcano Engine (ByteDance cloud, exclusive AI cloud partner), Samsung (Galaxy Z Fold6/Flip6 integration), BYD (DiLink smart cockpit), Xiaomi, Tesla, Audi, Lenovo, Mercedes-Benz, China Merchants Bank, China Media Group (2026 Spring Festival Gala), OpenClaw partner program

Notable customers

50+ automotive brands (145 car models, 7M+ vehicles), Samsung Electronics, BYD, China Merchants Bank, Mercedes-Benz, integrated into 300M+ devices across Xiaomi, Samsung, Tesla, Audi, Lenovo

Major milestones

August 2023: Public launch, November 2024: Became China's most popular AI chatbot (60M MAU), December 2025: Surpassed 100M DAU, February 2026: Released Seed 2.0 model, March 2026: Reached 345M MAU, June 2026: Launched Doubao Professional Edition with paid subscription tiers (68-500 yuan/month), June 23, 2026: Launched Doubao-Seed-2.1 Pro at FORCE conference; daily token calls surpassed 180 trillion, Integrated into 145+ car models across 50+ brands

Growth metrics

345M MAU (March 2026); 200M DAU (June 2026); 140M+ DAU (March 2026); 100M new users added in Q1 2026; lowest user acquisition cost of any ByteDance product reaching 100M DAU

Market positioning

Market leader in China's consumer AI chatbot space with 345M MAU (March 2026), surpassing combined MAU of Alibaba's Qwen and DeepSeek. Positioned as the "AI assistant for everyone" transitioning from free mass-market tool to tiered productivity platform. International version (Dola) competes globally.

Geographic focus

China (primary); global via Dola international version

About Liang Rubo

ByteDance CEO since 2021; previously co-founder and Head of HR at ByteDance; former CEO of Toutiao (ByteDance's news aggregation platform).

Official website: https://doubao.com