ByteDance’s other AI-powered chatbot is quietly gaining traction around the world

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

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

But ByteDance has quietly marketed Cici to users in the UK, Mexico and several Southeast Asian countries. Meta’s Ad Library shows that Cici was running more than 400 different ads in Mexico in October, most of which were touting the model’s ability to solve mathematical problems and the fact that it was completely free to use. It is also currently running advertising campaigns in the UK and the Philippines. On TikTok, creators in those countries shared dozens of promotional videos about Cici using hashtags like #ciciai.

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

Cici makes almost no mention of its ties with ByteDance anywhere in the app or on its website, but the Chinese company has previously confirmed its control of the apps. To Forbes in 2024. According to Sissi Privacy Policy DisclosureIt builds on technology from several other ByteDance-owned platforms, such as photo editor PicPic and programming assistant Coze. But when it comes to generating text, it uses OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini, not ByteDance’s proprietary big language models. (ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED.)

The design of Cici’s mobile app looks identical to Doubao’s as well. Users can chat with the AI ​​using text or voice, create and analyze images, and experiment with autonomous agents created by other users. But Cici is less advanced than Doubao when it comes to social and multimedia features: it lacks the ability to create music and video content, and users can’t share their creations directly on the platform.

Since TikTok’s launch, ByteDance has struggled to produce another app with the same global impact. Cici’s international influence is still far behind Doubao’s domestic dominance, but it shows the company is making steady progress and is willing to spend on acquiring new users. But without Chinese internet regulations preventing competition from Western AI companies, ByteDance will have to compete head-to-head with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.