TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has quietly launched four new generative AI apps for users outside of China, Forbes has learned. Dubbed Cici AI, Coze, ChitChop, and BagelBell, the apps were all launched in the past three months and collectively have millions of downloads. Cici AI, ChitChop, and Coze are bot creation platforms that let users make and share their own chatbots. BagelBell generates the plot and text of fictional stories that change brd on readers’ choices. But ByteDance did not build the underlying large language models that power them. Instead, the apps rely on OpenAI’s GPT technology, accessed through a Microsoft Azure license, according to ByteDance spokesperson Jodi Seth. On the new apps’ websites and in their terms of service, there is no mention of ByteDance, whose ownership is being reported here for the first time. Three of them are run by Spring (SG) Pte. Ltd., a new ByteDance subsidiary, and the fourth is run by Poligon Pte., a ByteDance subsidiary that has published erotic web novels and video games for ByteDance in the past. Cici and ChitChop are largely focused on entertainment, offering bots based on fictional characters and romantic companions, while Coze provides bots intended to simplify workplace tasks. Cici is the most popular of the apps so far, with more than 10 million downloads, according to the Google Play store. The apps, combined with the company’s launch of an AI tool to generate short form videos and reported attempts to build an AI image generator similar to Midjourney and Dall-E, seem to be part of ByteDance’s efforts to take on its competitors in the generative AI space.

Full story : TikTok Owner ByteDance Quietly Launched 4 Generative AI Apps Powered By OpenAI’s GPT,