According to Silicon Starman, ByteDance's core AI department Seed is undergoing a series of strategic adjustments and personnel changes. This change marks a major strategic change for the company in the AI field. Dr. Wu Yonghui, an authoritative expert in the AI field who just joined ByteDance from Google, will replace Zhu Wenjia, the former LLM team and general head of Seed, and become the new head of the Seed department. Dr. Wu Yonghui participated in the development of the Gemini project during his time at Google and has rich experience in AI research.
ByteDance internal personnel revealed that Dr. Wu Yonghui will be mainly responsible for the exploration of basic AI research, while Zhu Wenjia will continue to be responsible for the work related to model application. Both of them reported directly to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo. This adjustment means that the Seed department will focus more on basic research, while Zhu Wenjia will be independently responsible for the model application.
The timing of this personnel change is eye-catching. Just at the ByteDance internal staff meeting last week, CEO Liang Rubo reflected on the company's shortcomings in the field of AI and pointed out that the follow-up speed of major technologies is not fast enough. This reflection may be the fuse of this adjustment, showing ByteDance's repositioning in AI strategy.
All signs indicate that ByteDance is re-examining the organizational structure of its AI business. The Seed department led by Dr. Wu Yonghui will clearly focus on model basic research and development and will no longer be mixed with applications and other businesses. This reflects the major change in ByteDance's AI strategy, namely, from rapid expansion at the application level to in-depth construction of underlying technical strength.
This strategic adjustment is not only a reallocation of internal resources, but also a profound insight into the future development of the AI field. With the continuous advancement of AI technology, the importance of basic research is becoming increasingly prominent. ByteDance's adjustment is undoubtedly to occupy a more favorable position in the future AI competition.