ByteDance
ByteDance was founded in 2012 by Yiming Zhang and Rubo Liang. Liang is its current chairman and CEO. The company develops the Seed model families and distributes AI through consumer products, Volcano Engine and BytePlus.
Company & leadership
- Chairman and CEO
- Rubo Liang; CEO since late 2021.
- Ownership disclosure
- A September 2024 TikTok statement described roughly 60% institutional, 20% employee and 20% founder ownership. These are dated figures.
- AI research team
- ByteDance Seed was established in 2023.
Founders
- Yiming Zhang and Rubo Liang.
From the founders to current leadership
Zhang led ByteDance as CEO from 2012 to 2021. He then moved his focus to long-term strategy, company culture and social responsibility. Liang had led product research, Lark and internal efficiency work before becoming CEO.
The current board lists Liang, Arthur Dantchik, William E. Ford, Xavier Niel and Neil Shen. The governance page distinguishes ByteDance leadership from the leadership of TikTok and ByteDance China.
What the ownership disclosure establishes
TikTok’s Japanese newsroom published its ownership explanation on 6 September 2024. It named Carlyle, General Atlantic and Susquehanna as examples of institutional investors. The statement said four of five directors represented investors. It does not establish the shareholder percentages on 6 November 2026.
The Seed research team
Seed began in 2023 and has labs in China, Singapore and the United States. Its published remit covers language, speech, vision, world models and AI infrastructure. The team says its models power products that include Doubao, Coze and Jimeng.
ByteDance presents Volcano Engine as its China enterprise AI service and BytePlus as its global enterprise service. Its consumer portfolio includes Doubao and Jimeng in China, and Dola, Dreamina and CapCut internationally.
Recent model milestones
Seed 2.1 was released on 23 June 2026. The launch emphasized tool use, office work, software engineering and visual understanding.
Seedance 2.5 followed on 31 July 2026. Its release increased single-pass video generation to 30 seconds and added more reference inputs.