"Doubao" daily active users surpass 100 million! ByteDance's most cost-effective blockbuster threatens the advertising empire

ByteDance’s AI application Doubao surpasses 100 million daily active users (DAU), becoming another billion-level product after TikTok. An insider revealed that Doubao has the lowest promotional costs among the company’s all-time products with over 100 million DAU, mainly driven by user self-promotion and content popularity, resulting in natural downloads. The “Three Palace Grids” and other P-image gameplay have repeatedly topped trending searches, driving hundreds of thousands of organic downloads daily. Doubao is also rapidly expanding across multiple scenarios such as AI+ hardware, and will participate in CCTV Spring Festival Gala interactive collaboration in 2026.

The miracle of self-promotion created by the Three Palace Grids trending

According to internal sources at ByteDance, Doubao’s user growth (UG) and marketing expenses are the lowest among all products with over 100 million DAU in ByteDance’s history. This achievement is considered a miracle in today’s internet environment where money is heavily spent on user acquisition. Early TikTok, Toutiao, and other ByteDance blockbuster products invested hundreds of millions or even tens of billions in marketing costs, but Doubao achieved 100 million daily active users with almost zero promotion budget.

The secret lies in content-driven self-promotion. Doubao’s Seedream raw image model and Seedance video generation model continuously activate creative scenarios, but the true explosive factor is the P-image gameplay like the Three Palace Grids. These gameplay features repeatedly top trending searches, generating daily organic downloads in the millions. Users share their creative images generated by Doubao on social media, and this user-generated content (UGC) natural dissemination far exceeds any advertising efforts.

Insiders say that this year, Doubao’s retention rate is “so-so.” While this seems ordinary, it actually hides a key insight. In an environment where AI applications often see a sharp drop in retention after initial novelty, “so-so” means Doubao at least maintains an acceptable user stickiness. More importantly, as features continue to iterate and scenarios expand, Doubao’s retention rate is expected to further improve.

The 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala collaboration will be another breakout point for Doubao. As one of the most-watched programs globally, its interactive collaborations often bring millions of new users. Products like Taobao, WeChat, and Alipay have achieved leapfrog growth through Spring Festival Gala collaborations. If Doubao can design sufficiently engaging interactive features during the Gala, its DAU in the first quarter of 2026 could reach 150 million or even higher.

MaaS commercialization exceeds expectations with surprising profitability

Although Doubao’s consumer-side commercialization path remains unclear, its large model MaaS (Model as a Service) has made significant progress beyond expectations. Some internal voices at ByteDance believe that the inference costs for Doubao’s large DAU are a certain profit pressure on the company, as 100 million daily active users mean handling massive AI inference requests daily, with considerable computational costs.

However, reports indicate that Doubao’s large model MaaS service achieves high cost-performance through technical optimization and also maintains decent gross profit margins. This finding is significant because it breaks the myth that “AI services must be loss-making.” Many AI companies slash prices fiercely to compete, resulting in negative gross margins and relying on funding to survive. Doubao demonstrates that with sufficient technical optimization and scale effects, AI services can achieve positive gross margins while remaining price competitive.

ByteDance’s Seed team is regarded as the “technical and organizational backbone” supporting Doubao’s large model, and is also a core strategic business. In 2025, this team not only completed the integration of multiple teams such as AI Lab but also upgraded the organizational structure, with Wu Yonghui becoming the “number one” of the team, focusing entirely on fundamental research and application deployment of large models. To motivate the team, ByteDance provided additional equity incentives to Seed members and canceled some long-term research project quarterly OKRs.

Three paths for Doubao’s commercialization

C-end subscription model: Referencing ChatGPT Plus, charging for premium features and faster inference

B-end MaaS services: Providing API access and private deployment for enterprise clients, already achieving positive gross profit

Ecosystem revenue sharing: Collaborating with hardware manufacturers and content platforms, embedding AI functions to share revenue

The report mentions that 2025, regarded as the AI year, will be marked by the emergence of DeepSeek, which will kick off with a phenomenon-level explosion; by 2026, the task of popularization and making AI part of daily life for hundreds of millions will be taken over by “possibly Doubao.” This judgment is not exaggerated, because although DeepSeek is technologically advanced, it mainly serves developers and professional users, whereas Doubao targets the broadest mass market.

The double-edged sword of automation capabilities

According to China Times News, Doubao’s mobile automation capabilities are nearly like “cheats,” able to directly execute various app operations and accurately identify information. This poses a major challenge to platforms relying on advertising and traffic revenue. Users only need to confirm AI-filtered results to complete payments, a mode that undoubtedly threatens traditional business models, especially those dependent on ad revenue.

Doubao Assistant uses “screen reading” and “simulated clicking” to operate apps, with technical features highly similar to “plugins” or “hacking behaviors,” becoming a new security threat in finance. This mode blurs the line between convenient AI assistants and malicious programs, making current risk control systems difficult to identify the operator’s identity. When AI can simulate human operations, traditional verification codes and behavioral analysis for fraud prevention will become ineffective.

With the launch of Doubao mobile, many tech giants have responded swiftly with bans, indicating concerns over its market influence. Apple, Meta, and other platforms may see Doubao as a threat because it bypasses their advertising systems and directly helps users complete tasks. Historically, those who solve user pain points lead the era. Apple, which dominated with excellent user experience, may need to quickly integrate AI demands to maintain competitive advantage in the future.