Doubao’s daily active users (DAUs) have officially exceeded 100 million, reinforcing its position as a major app within ByteDance’s portfolio. Multiple sources confirmed the milestone, 36Kr reported.

A ByteDance insider said Doubao’s user growth and marketing spend were the lowest among any company product that has surpassed the threshold of 100 million DAUs. Sources also said user retention has remained strong through 2025. Doubao’s image generation model Seedream and video generation model Seedance have continued to fuel creative use cases, while viral tools such as the “three-frame collage” photo feature have driven millions of downloads daily.

ByteDance was among the first Chinese tech firms to bet heavily on artificial intelligence. It began internal testing of Doubao in June 2023 and launched the app publicly two months later, ahead of competitors such as Kimi, which debuted in October 2023, and Tencent’s Yuanbao, released in May 2024. That early start helped Doubao dominate app store charts for months.

Beyond this milestone, Doubao has advanced on multiple fronts. It rolled out the Doubao smartphone to integrate hardware with AI, and expanded Douyin’s e-commerce platform to explore AI-enabled shopping scenarios.

The app’s rapid growth reflects both technological strength and organizational coordination. Doubao’s large language model is developed by ByteDance’s Seed team, a key internal division. This year, Seed merged with ByteDance’s AI Lab and underwent an organizational upgrade under new leader Wu Yonghui. The team now focuses on foundational AI research and product deployment. To boost morale, ByteDance offered additional stock options to Seed team members and suspended quarterly performance reviews for certain long-term research projects.

With massive traffic and strong engagement metrics, Doubao’s rise is pushing rivals to accelerate their own AI investments.

Earlier this year, Tencent’s Yuanbao intensified its marketing push. According to AppGrowing data, Yuanbao’s ad spending rose steadily from February, reaching nearly RMB 6 billion (USD 840 million) by July, and briefly topped China’s free app download charts.

By year’s end, Alibaba launched an aggressive campaign to promote Qwen, alongside Ant Group’s AQ and LingGuang applications. The Qwen app gained particular momentum, attracting more than 30 million monthly active users within 23 days of its launch.

Meanwhile, ByteDance’s Volcano Engine will serve as the exclusive AI cloud partner for China Media Group’s 2026 Lunar New Year gala, one of the country’s most-watched events. Doubao will also provide interactive features for the broadcast. The competition for this partnership has long been fierce, with Douyin previously holding the role in 2019 and 2021.

The year 2025 is widely seen as the dawn of China’s “AI era,” marked by the breakout of DeepSeek. As 2026 begins, Doubao may carry the task of bringing AI into the everyday lives of hundreds of millions.

Still, some within ByteDance cautioned that Doubao’s path to commercialization remains unclear. Supporting such a large user base entails significant inference costs, which could weigh on margins.

Even so, insiders said Doubao’s model-as-a-service business has exceeded internal expectations, delivering healthy margins through technical optimization and competitive pricing.

KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Li Xiaoxia for 36Kr.