ByteDance’s Doubao Cuts General Session Team by About Half

The shrinking of Doubao's General Session team signals a shift in how ByteDance is prioritising its AI assistant: conversation product strategy and evaluation are being de-emphasised relative to commercialization and Feishu, where some staff are being redeployed. For the broader consumer AI assistant market, this reads as a maturing phase in which monetisation and enterprise integration matter more than general chat experience. Whether other large-model players follow with similar team reallocations is the open question worth watching.