Doubao officially launches paid plans: 300M MAU AI assistant's commercialization push signals industry shift

ByteDance's AI assistant Doubao has officially started charging users. According to smarthey.com, the AI assistant with 300 million monthly active users is beginning its monetization journey, marking a new phase for China's large model industry.

Doubao is ByteDance's AI conversational assistant, which rapidly accumulated a massive user base thanks to ByteDance's traffic advantages and product capabilities. The 300 million MAU figure makes it one of the largest AI assistant products in China. The decision to start charging indicates that ByteDance believes Doubao has accumulated sufficient user stickiness to support paid conversion.

This shift reflects deeper changes in the large model industry. Over the past year, China's AI assistant market has been dominated by free user acquisition, with companies burning cash to capture users at all costs. However, as model inference costs remain high and capital market attention turns to profitability, the industry is moving from 'burning money for users' to 'commercial monetization.'

Doubao's paid plan move may trigger a chain reaction, accelerating the commercialization process of other AI assistant products. It is one of the most significant signals that the industry is transitioning from technology competition to business competition.