(Yicai) Nov. 28 -- Chinese tech giant ByteDance has established a new division, named Flow, which will focus on artificial intelligence applications.

Flow has already released recruitment-related information both internally and to the public, Chinese tech media 36Kr reported. The new division has already released two AI chatbots, DouBao and Cici, the first for the domestic market and the second for overseas, with multiple other innovative AI products under incubation.

Zhu Wenjia, head of ByteDance’s large language model developing arm, will be the executive in charge of Flow, while Hong Dingkun, vice president of technology at the Beijing-based company, will be in charge of the new division’s technological development, 36Kr added.

ByteDance also moved other key staffers from its workplace collaboration and communication platform Lark and short-video site Douyin to Flow to create a brand-new to-consumer product, according to sources familiar with the matter.

In February, ByteDance started recruiting for its departments engaged in other AI fields. Its LLM team has around 10 employees and is led by the company’s search division, while its image model team is led by the firm’s intelligent creations team, which is, in turn, affiliated with ByteDance’s department of product development and engineering architecture.

Moreover, ByteDance recently downsized its gaming arm Nuverse. Yicai learned yesterday from Nuverse that the division will try to spin off its already released games to ensure its smooth operation and shut down all its unreleased projects, except for some innovative ones.

Editor: Futura Costaglione