ByteDance Continues Development of AI Wearable Devices

According to Chinese media 36Kr, ByteDance is investing heavily in the field of AI. In addition to focusing on large model applications and other software aspects, its exploration of AI+hardware has never ceased.

Several insiders revealed that ByteDance’s exploration in the direction of AI hardware is internally divided into two product lines: one product line is codenamed “D line”, headed by Li Haoqian, the founder of the OWS (Open Wearable Stereo, open wearable stereo headphones) headphone brand Oladance. ByteDance had recently acquired this brand. The other product line is the “O line”, headed by the founder of a company previously acquired by ByteDance, who reports to Hong Dingkun, the Vice President of Technology at ByteDance.

The focus of the D line will be on wearable devices with AI capabilities, continuing the previous experience of the Oladance team with headphones – Li Haoqian was a senior executive at headphone manufacturer BOSE before starting his own business. The current focus of the O line is on handheld AI hardware devices. There were previous media reports that the Oladance team would explore head-mounted products similar to Pico. However, upon verification by 36Kr, this news was found to be untrue.

At the same time, the person in charge of ByteDance’s large model team “Dou Bao” stated that the Dou Bao business is exploring the combination with intelligent wearable devices to provide users with a more natural and convenient interaction experience. Also, we will open the capabilities of Dou Bao to various hardware manufacturers, hoping to provide design references for the cooperation between hardware manufacturers and Dou Bao’s large model/Dou Bao AI assistant.

Although handheld devices have not yet formed a specific shape, 36Kr learned that when ByteDance started the O project, it had tried to seek cooperation with manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Gionee, but failed to reach an agreement. An insider said that the O line will also seek to land in multiple scenarios in the future, which may include education.

An insider close to these two projects told 36Kr that ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming is highly interested in the exploration of AI hardware. In addition, ByteDance is also closely watching candidates in the mobile phone industry to supplement the core strength of the team.

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