Reports Suggest ByteDance Establishes New Department Flow to Focus on AI Application Layer
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On November 27, according to reports from 36Kr, ByteDance recently established a new department called Flow, dedicated to AI innovation. The department is led by Hong Dingkun, ByteDance's Vice President of Technology, as the technical head, and Zhu Wenjia, the leader of ByteDance's large model team, as the business head.
It is reported that the Flow department has already posted recruitment notices internally at ByteDance and is also seeking talent through external hiring channels. The department describes itself as ByteDance's AI innovation business team, having already launched two AI conversational products—Doubao and Cici—targeting domestic and overseas markets, respectively. Additionally, several other AI-related innovative products are currently in development.
According to sources, the establishment of the Flow department is part of a series of business and structural adjustments ByteDance initiated in early November. These adjustments are still ongoing, and the specific organizational structure and reporting lines of the Flow department have yet to be finalized.
Insiders also revealed that, as part of these adjustments, ByteDance has reassigned personnel from various business units, including Feishu and Douyin, to the Flow department to participate in the development of a new consumer-facing (C-end) product.
In 2023, ByteDance has been quietly but vigorously investing in the AI field. To date, the company has made strategic moves across all layers, from model development to application deployment.
In February this year, 36Kr reported that ByteDance began forming a large model team, focusing on both language and image modalities, led by Zhu Wenjia, the product and technology head of TikTok. The language model team is primarily managed by ByteDance's search department, with a current team size of around a dozen members, while the image model team is led by the Intelligent Creation team under the Product R&D and Engineering Architecture Department.
On the product front, ByteDance started internal testing of an AI conversational product called "Grace" in June, which later officially launched as Doubao. At the time, this project team was still part of ByteDance's technical middle office and had not yet formed a standalone product department.
During the mobile internet era, ByteDance became known as an "App factory" for its ability to rapidly develop super C-end apps. Many in the market have been eager to see if ByteDance can extend this capability into the era of large models. Now, with the establishment of the new AI department, ByteDance has demonstrated its determination to accelerate advancements in the AI application layer.