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Aug 11, 20232 min

ByteDance's AI Chatbot Still Playing Catch-Up to Rivals

Updated: Dec 28, 2023

[Edited] ByteDance, the parent company of popular social media platform TikTok, is intensifying its internal testing of the Chinese-language AI chatbot named "Grace."

Credits: Reuters

The company's latest endeavor to create a ChatGPT-like service has received a lukewarm response from some employees.

Dubbed as "your AI bud," the Grace chatbot is currently accessible exclusively to ByteDance corporate email account holders. Users can log on to the dedicated website, gracebot.cn, to interact with the chatbot. However, compared to well-established AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard, Grace has been described as "still immature" and "lagging behind leading [AI chatbots] overseas" by a ByteDance representative.

ByteDance acknowledges that Grace is undergoing further internal testing and has clarified that the chatbot will only be available in the Chinese market. Despite being built with a generative AI algorithm, similar to ChatGPT, Grace has yet to impress employees who have had the opportunity to use it.

Some employees have reported perplexing responses and a lack of satisfactory performance from the chatbot.

While ByteDance continues its company wide testing of Grace, employees remain skeptical about its capabilities. The chatbot's inability to generate compelling marketing copy and its inconsistent responses have left users unimpressed. ByteDance's previous attempt at generative AI, the development of "Tako" to aid content searching on TikTok, was also in its early stages.

In China, several domestic AI chatbot services, including Baidu's Ernie Bot, SenseTime's SenseChat, iFlytek's SparkDesk, and Alibaba Group Holding's Tongyi Qianwen, are currently in trial mode. However, the government has not officially approved any ChatGPT-style service in the country.

As ByteDance strives to enhance Grace's performance and overcome its current limitations, it faces competition from other Chinese tech giants that have already launched nationwide trials of their AI chatbots. The development of advanced AI chatbots holds the potential to revolutionize content creation and user experiences.


  • ByteDance is intensifying internal testing of its AI chatbot, Grace, but has received a lukewarm response from some employees.

  • Grace is currently accessible to ByteDance corporate email account holders via the dedicated website, gracebot.cn.

  • The chatbot is described as "still immature" and "lagging behind leading AI chatbots overseas."

Source: SCMP