Tech Desk 
Feb 14, 2026
ByteDance has officially launched its Doubao 2.0 model, an upgrade of China's most widely used artificial intelligence (AI) app, offering users a better experience.
The company said that the launch of Doubao 2.0 — ahead of a highly anticipated new DeepSeek model — is likely aimed at preventing such a scenario from repeating itself.
Doubao 2.0 is positioned for the "agent era", where AI models are expected to execute complex real-world tasks rather than only answer questions, ByteDance said in a statement.
The model's pro version includes complex reasoning and multi-step task execution capabilities that match OpenAI's GPT 5.2 and Google's Gemini 3 Pro, while reducing usage costs by roughly an order of magnitude, according to the company.
ByteDance, referring to the unit of data processed by an AI model, said: "This cost advantage will become even more crucial as real-world, complex tasks involve large-scale inference and multi-step generation that will expend a huge amount of tokens."
Doubao leads all AI chatbot apps in China with 155 million weekly active users, with DeepSeek second at 81.6 million, according to information provider QuestMobile's most recent data, published in late December.
However, it's launch will help ByteDance fend off recent pressure from domestic competitors.
