ByteDance and DeepSeek Are Placing Very Different AI Bets

On Monday, DeepSeek released DeepSeek V3.2, another open-weight model that anyone can tinker with. The startup says it performs on par with the latest models from OpenAI and Google, and it even beats them on some key mathematics benchmarks.

That same day, ByteDance, whose dominance in AI applications we covered previously, introduced even more ways for people to use its chatbot, Doubao. ByteDance is now working with a Chinese smartphone manufacturer to embed Doubao into the operating system, giving it access to different apps and allowing it to conduct agentic tasks with them. In other words, it’s coming for Apple’s Siri.

Both ByteDance and DeepSeek have AI apps with over 140 million monthly users. But their latest announcements represent two diverging trends in China’s AI industry. While some companies are still competing with their Western counterparts to build ever more capable models, others have quietly withdrawn ...