ByteDance, owner of TikTok and its Chinese sibling Douyin, is doubling its investments in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), according to the company’s chief executive.

ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo, in outlining his fourth-quarter goals, said the company would “continue to expand (its) advantage in current (GenAI) key applications” and “strengthen multiple verticals,” according to a note circulated internally and seen by employees who spoke to the South China Morning Post.

ByteDance declined to comment when contacted on Thursday.

The Beijing-based company operates the Doubao AI chatbot in China and its overseas equivalent, called Cici, as well as several AI-based video tools, including Sora rival Jimeng AI, video models PixelDance and Seaweed and the Jianying video editor, marketed under the name CapCut overseas. .

However, ByteDance saw AI chatbots as a slower growth opportunity and instead prioritized AI video generators, according to a report in local news outlet 36Kr on Wednesday.

This is despite the fact that Doubao has become the most popular AI chatbot in China, with almost 60 million monthly active users (MAU), becoming the second most popular in the world in terms of MAU after OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to a November ranking by Aicpb.com, a website that tracks the popularity of global AI products.