ByteDance is enhancing its Doubao chatbot with a new AI video generation feature, bolstering its presence in China’s rapidly expanding generative AI market, the South China Morning Post reported.

Doubao, powered by its LLM, now includes a video function capable of converting text or images into video clips.

The feature, supporting advanced camera movements and various artistic styles, is said to be currently available to a select group of early adopters.

Additionally, ByteDance introduced several new AI video products including an upgrade to its Jimeng AI video app launched in August, featuring the second iteration of the Seaweed video model for faster video clip generation.

Jimeng AI, developed by ByteDance-owned Faceu Technology, was released on the Chinese App Store. It is an expansion of the company’s AI software that can generate videos based on text prompts, joining the growing number of China-based technology companies releasing rivals to OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora.

Seaweed and PixelDance, another video model, were integrated into the Doubao LLM family in September.

At the same time, ByteDance announced plans to raise up to $600m (4.25bn yuan) for its car information and trading platform Dongchedi.

Key investors in the funding round included General Atlantic, HongShan, KKR & Co. and Gaorong Ventures.

In Malaysia, ByteDance reduced its workforce by more than 700, pivoting towards enhanced AI for content moderation.

The affected employees, predominantly content moderators, were notified via email on 9 October 2024, according to sources.