ByteDance Doubao + Seed (豆包 / Seed)
Known for: ByteDance's Doubao app, Seed research, video models, Volcano Engine calls, and on-device agent experiments.
ByteDance's Doubao/Seed foundation-model org (Beijing + Bay Area). Wu Yonghui (吴永辉, ex-Google DeepMind VP) joined as Seed lead February 2025; recent coverage emphasizes Doubao's consumer feedback loop, Seedance video, Volcano Engine token share, and ByteDance's experiments around phone/on-device agent access.
- GUO Daya (郭达雅)Researcher, DeepSeek (reportedly departed for ByteDance Seed early 2026)
- DING Ming (丁铭)Now at ByteDance Seed (formerly Zhipu)
- HUANG Wenhao (黄文灏)ByteDance large-model team; former 01.AI technical co-founder / VP Algorithms
- YU Bowen (郁博文)Now at ByteDance Seed (joined March 12, 2026 as post-training lead, Visual Model & Multimodal Interaction Team)
- WU Yonghui (吴永辉)Head of Seed foundational research, ByteDance (since February 2025)
- ZHU Wenjia (朱文佳)Leads Doubao large-model applications, ByteDance
- WANG Mingxuan (王明轩)Senior Researcher, ByteDance Seed; Co-Director SIA Lab (joint w/ Tsinghua AIR)
- ZHOU Chang (周畅)Multimodal Interaction & World-Models lead, ByteDance Seed (joined September 2024)
News & coverage
Notable recent updates, newest first.
Doubao (Chinese: Doubao) starts charging merchants 12-18% commissions on AI-recommended products via Douyin (international version: TikTok (international version of Douyin)).
ByteDance reportedly begins pre-training a 10-trillion parameter model.
ByteDance admits it has fallen behind in AI, pivots to 'All in To B productivity' and doubles down on young talent.
ByteDance launches Seedance 2.5, its latest AI video model with improved length and stability.
Doubao (Chinese: Doubao) absorbs Feishu enterprise platform, rebranding it as Doubao.
ByteDance has formed an office productivity department within its Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) AI lab.
Doubao (Chinese: Doubao) rolls out paid subscriptions, testing how to prove value for an AI super-app.
ByteDance launches a world model team to enter autonomous driving, marking its strategic push into physical AI.
Doubao (Chinese: Doubao) launches integration with Huawei FreeClip 2 earbuds, enabling dual-agent interaction with Xiaoyi on HarmonyOS.
AI music startup Yinlv Shandong partners with ByteDance's Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) on songwriting app Gege AI, aiming to preserve Chinese folk music with a dedicated model.