ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo has declared that the current AI boom represents the most significant developmental peak in the IT industry’s 50-year history, far surpassing previous milestones.
The Evolution of IT Peaks
Speaking at the Lark Future Unlimited & Doubao Work Kick-off Meeting, Liang identified four major development peaks in the IT sector over the past half-century: the PC era, the Web era, the Mobile era, and the current AI era. He emphasized that such industry-wide opportunities are rare, typically occurring every 15-20 years.
Liang’s insights follow a mid-year review of ByteDance’s AI progress in late August. While acknowledging competitive strength in C-end applications with Doubao and state-of-the-art performance in video generation models like Seedance, he also noted a widening gap in large language models (LLMs) compared to leading overseas models. To address this, ByteDance plans to double down on in-house LLM research and development, accepting short-term setbacks in favor of long-term optimization and foundational work.
Strategic Integration for AI-Driven Productivity
The CEO also shed light on the recent integration of Doubao, Lark, and Volcano Engine. He indicated that AI’s advancement in productivity tools has exceeded expectations, making the B-end market increasingly crucial. A significant portion of Lark’s new clients are already purchasing AI products alongside their main subscriptions, with over 90% doing so. This strategic integration is a direct response to the immense opportunity presented by AI, aiming to foster superior products for office and productivity scenarios and enhance services for B-end customers.
Organizational Realignment for Synergy
This strategic shift was preceded by organizational adjustments initiated in late July to bolster synergy between Doubao, Lark, and Volcano Engine in enterprise productivity. Key changes include:
- Product Team Consolidation: The Lark and Doubao product teams have merged to form a new Doubao product team. Zhao Qi, head of Doubao, will lead this consolidated unit, with Xie Xin, formerly head of Lark, reporting to Zhao Qi.
- Go-To-Market (GTM) Integration: The Lark GTM (Market, Sales, Customer Service) team is integrating with the Volcano Engine team to establish a new B-to-B GTM organization named the “Creativity Service Platform.” This entity will manage the market, sales, and customer service for ByteDance’s MaaS and SaaS cloud services. Tan Dai, head of Volcano Engine, will oversee this platform, with Lin Chan (Lark Sales Lead) and Shi Zhijun (Lark Strategy and Marketing Lead) reporting to Tan Dai.
These moves underscore ByteDance’s commitment to leveraging AI for business productivity and reinforcing its position in the enterprise market through integrated, AI-powered solutions.
