Doubao by ByteDance: status and timeline

Doubao

A closed-source large language model family built for reasoning and agents. Doubao comes in multiple capability tiers: Pro (the flagship), Lite, Mini, and Code. It competes directly with frontier global models.

DeployStage 4 of 5

382M monthly active users as of June 2026; serves China's AI search market.

Updated Jun 2026Checked 10 Oct0 updates this week

Milestones

Next · Doubao expands to more enterprise verticals in China

Doubao launchedAug 2023Complete.
Doubao reaches 100M daily active users during Spring FestivalFeb 2026Complete.
Doubao reaches 260M MAU, overtakes Ernie BotQ1 2026Complete.
Doubao reaches 382M monthly active usersJun 2026Complete.

Most important updates

Upcoming

Q4 2026Doubao expands to more enterprise verticals in China (next)

Current obstacles

Regulatory constraints in ChinaChinese AI models must pass content safety reviews and adhere to government guidance. This constrains what Doubao can learn and say.

Physics limits

Hallucination and fact driftLike all large models, Doubao can state falsehoods fluently, especially on topics outside its training data. Regular fine-tuning is needed to stay current.
Context window vs. cost trade-offLonger context windows allow the model to 'remember' more of a conversation, but each token costs compute. Practical limits emerge around 200K tokens.

How it works

3 parts

Training

Trained on Chinese text and code

Like other frontier models, Doubao is trained on trillions of tokens of text and code, then fine-tuned with human feedback to act as an assistant.

Variants

Multiple capability tiers

Pro offers the most capability for reasoning and long-form tasks. Lite and Mini run faster and cheaper. Code is optimized for software engineering.

Cost

Lower API costs than global frontier models

ByteDance charges roughly one-tenth the token price of leading global models, a significant advantage for cost-sensitive Chinese users and enterprises.

Spec sheet

Spec	Doubao
Monthly active users (June 2026)	382M^R (reported)
Weekly active users (early 2026)	155M+^R (reported)
Daily active users (Feb 2026 peak)	100M+^R (reported)
Token pricing advantage vs global models	~1/10 cost^R (reported)

^R reported by the company

Update log

2 updates

Jun 2026

Major: Doubao reaches 382M monthly active users, solidifying dominance in China's consumer AI marketPressCommercial

Feb 2026

Major: Doubao reaches 260M monthly active users and becomes China's #1 AI chatbot, overtaking Baidu's Ernie BotPressCommercial

About ByteDance

The team behind Doubao

ByteDance

TikTok, Doubao, Seedance, CapCut, Douyin

Beijing-based platform company behind TikTok and Douyin with 1B+ users each. AI division produces Doubao (conversational model) and Seedance (video generation). Exceeded Meta on quarterly revenue in Q2 2025.

Doubao reached 382M monthly active users by June 2026, dominating China's consumer AI market.
Seedance 2.0 generates video and audio simultaneously; ranked #2 on Artificial Analysis (Elo 1,269) as of March 2026.
AI models drive content recommendation and generation; core to ByteDance's $120B+ first-half 2026 revenue.

bytedance.com (opens bytedance.com)Company profile →

Founded: 201214 yrs
Headquarters: China
Status: Private
Valuation: $550BprivateFeb 2026
Staff: ~110,000Jan 2026
Works in: AIFrontier models
Coverage: 2 programs · 3 updateslatest 1 Jun 2026checked 10 Oct
People: Zhang Yiming (opens en.wikipedia.org)FounderLiang Rubo (opens en.wikipedia.org)CEO

Spec

Doubao

Monthly active users (June 2026)

382M^R (reported)

Weekly active users (early 2026)

155M+^R (reported)

Daily active users (Feb 2026 peak)

100M+^R (reported)

Token pricing advantage vs global models

~1/10 cost^R (reported)