ByteDance adds AI assistant to office tool Feishu, joining rivals Tencent and Alibaba in workplace chatbot race

TikTok parent ByteDance has launched the latest iteration of its online collaboration tool Feishu, now infused with artificial intelligence (AI) to help Chinese clients with workplace automation, as Chinese tech giants continue to push for more industrial use of generative AI.

Feishu 7, announced on Wednesday in Beijing, will help Chinese enterprises get “AI-ready” by integrating ChatGPT-like functions powered by various large language models (LLMs), according to Feishu CEO Xie Xin.

“We’ve seen AI is changing the way we work and push for the evolution of our organisations,” Xie said during the announcement. “It’s critical for entrepreneurs to ensure their companies can quickly adapt to and get ready for the fast-moving era of artificial intelligence.”

LLMs are the technology underpinning products like ChatGPT, which Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched a year ago, igniting a global AI arms race that has drawn in a slew of Chinese tech firms all building their own chatbots.

With the new version of its office tool, ByteDance is introducing another chatbot in the form of an AI assistant dubbed Feishu Intelligent Buddy.

The company says the virtual assistant will be able to help users summarise meetings and unread messages, as well as analyse content from PDF documents, videos and audio files. It can also be used to draft many types of work documents, including emails, spreadsheets, mind maps and survey forms.

By way of example, Xie said he need only ask Feishu Buddy to generate a spreadsheet for an “inventory management system”, which can later be fine-tuned with requests for new fields and table adjustments.

“The best way to introduce large language models should be like the addition of an intelligent and capable person,” Xie said. “And this person will not only perform multiple tasks but also will keep gaining new abilities.”

Customers have the option of choosing the LLM they want to use for the Feishu assistant, according to Xie. It currently supports models from Tencent-backed unicorn MiniMax, state-backed Zhipu AI, and Baichuan, a start-up from Sogou founder Wang Xiaochuan.

Feishu said that a group of Chinese companies, including gadget maker Anker Innovations Technology and beverage start-up Yuanqi Senlin, have already been using Feishu Intelligent Buddy to improve efficiency in areas such as sales and marketing.

Tech giants with their own office software see this as a potential gateway to grow the use of the technology. Microsoft has been integrating its GPT-powered Copilot systems into a range of products and promoting AI heavily in Asia.

In China, Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post, have also been integrating their AI systems into office tools.

Tencent has baked its Hunyuan model into products like Tencent Docs and WeChat search, while Alibaba has been integrating its Tongyi Qianwen model into a number of products that include DingTalk, a Feishu competitor.