Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
Choose edition
Search
singapore
asia
world
opinion
life
business
sport
Visual
Podcasts
SPH Rewards
STClassifieds
Paid press releases
Advertise with us
FAQs
Contact us
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
ByteDance is hiring in the US for nearly 100 open roles within its AI division.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Published Feb 20, 2026, 07:31 AM
Updated Feb 20, 2026, 08:51 AM
Los Angeles – Chinese tech giant ByteDance is hiring in the US for nearly 100 open roles within its
artificial intelligence division,
an effort to compete with the world’s leading US-based AI companies despite years of national security concerns from American lawmakers and regulators.
artificial intelligence division,
The positions, which are listed on ByteDance’s career page, are for Seed, its AI team that was established in 2023 and now has labs across the US, Singapore and China.
The open roles highlight various job responsibilities, including “producing international data” for ByteDance’s large language models; advancing its popular text, image and video generation tools; doing research to develop human-like AI; and building science models to help the company pursue drug discovery and design, according to the postings.
ByteDance’s US hiring push comes after it announced a long-awaited deal to sell parts of its US TikTok business to non-Chinese owners – a move intended to address US national security concerns that have loomed large over the company for more than half a decade. Lawmakers worried that ByteDance could use TikTok to collect valuable data on American citizens, or use the app’s content recommendation algorithm to push narratives favourable to leaders in Beijing. The company has said this has not happened, nor would it.
While ByteDance’s ties to TikTok make it best known in the US as a social media company, it is also a dominant AI company and a threat to American artificial intelligence pioneers. ByteDance’s chatbot app Doubao – akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic PBC’s Claude and Google’s Gemini – was China’s most-downloaded AI chatbot for most of 2025, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. In February, ByteDance launched a new AI video generation model, Seedance 2.0, and image generation model, Seedream 5.0.
Those launches, just weeks after the TikTok deal closed, have thrust ByteDance back into the spotlight in the US. Hollywood heavyweights have accused ByteDance of stealing intellectual property with Seedance, which has already been used to spin up viral alternative endings to popular television shows and fake movie scenes with A-list actors. Within days of Seedance’s availability, Walt Disney Company and Paramount Skydance sent ByteDance cease-and-desist letters. The Motion Picture Association – which counts companies like Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery among its members – demanded that ByteDance stop “unauthorised use of US copyrighted works on a massive scale”.
“ByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0,” a spokesperson wrote in an e-mail. “We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
The company did not respond to questions about the AI job postings.
ByteDance’s growing AI presence in the US coincides with broader concerns from lawmakers that
China is an imminent threat to US AI dominance.
Though Chinese and American AI products are not always available in the same markets, some officials worry that losing ground in the AI race will give China geopolitical leverage and military advantages that pose national security risks.
China is an imminent threat to US AI dominance.
In other cases, Chinese products are available in the US while American offerings are blocked in China, allowing Chinese companies to seize market share, ingest data and shape culture and discourse in ways their American rivals cannot. The Trump administration has also emphasised the importance of adoption of American AI products abroad.
Some see ByteDance’s rise in the AI world as one part of this issue. “ByteDance has access to vast amounts of compute, data, and capital, plus the explicit support of the CCP,” said Mr Aaron Bartnick, a former Biden White House tech policy official, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “It has all the ingredients to be an AI powerhouse, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to American policymakers or companies that it is now emerging as one.”
The ByteDance Seed team is hiring in San Jose, Los Angeles and Seattle, where TikTok also has large offices. ByteDance is also launching the Seed Edge Research Initiative, which “focuses on developing general intelligence models – models that possess human-like learning abilities, interaction capabilities, and tool-use proficiency”, according to one posting.
ByteDance has also been ramping up its science-focused efforts, hiring US talent with backgrounds in biology, physics and chemistry “to develop open, high-precision, generalizable models that drive breakthroughs in biology and drug discovery”, according to one current job listing.
Healthcare and drug discovery are areas where American AI competitors are also investing heavily. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman announced OpenAI for Healthcare in January, and said earlier in February that his company may consider investing in or subsidising firms that use OpenAI’s technology for drug discovery. Anthropic, which recently announced Claude for Life Sciences and Claude for Healthcare, is also supporting uses of its AI aimed at accelerating drug discovery and development. BLOOMBERG
AI/artificial intelligence
China
TikTok
United States
E-paper
Newsletters
Podcasts
RSS Feed
About Us
Terms & Conditions
Privacy Policy
Need help? Reach us here.
Advertise with us