- Tiktok’s parent company, ByteDance, reportedly wants to get into the self-driving car race.
- A new report claims that the company’s R&D team is exploring driving scenarios for unmanned logistics and has already had talks with top talent and other AV companies.
- ByteDance says that it is exploring the “physical” space of AI, but denies the rumors.
ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, is reportedly making moves in the autonomous car race. Yes, you read that right. No, this isn’t a fever dream. The same company that is behind the app that controls the algorithm behind all your favorite viral videos is reportedly eyeing self-driving cars.
News of the pivot comes from 36kr which cites several unnamed “insider” sources who confirmed that ByteDance “is exploring entry into the autonomous driving sector.” The outlet reports that ByteDance is looking into the business of “unmanned logistics,” according to one source.
According to the sources, the project is being overseen by ByteDance’s Seed division. Seed is the company’s R&D team that covers AI tools used in the company’s products—this might be vision and speech-based models, world models, or even next-gen interaction.
Seed’s purview overlaps with how autonomous vehicles see the world. The models it works on are precisely what driverless cars need to understand the environment around them, as well as predict and plan the intent of other drivers (and humans).
The sources also note that ByteDance has also held business discussions with other providers in the AV space and offered jobs to top talent in the industry. ByteDance was quick to shoot down the rumors.
“ByteDance conducts extensive early research and exploration in cutting-edge fields of large AI models, including physical AI, but has no plans to develop intelligent driving businesses,” ByteDance told 36kr in a statement.
If ByteDance were to venture into the self-driving-car space, it wouldn’t be without precedent. In addition to auto companies, tech firms around the world are working to develop autonomous driving capability. Waymo, America’s leading AV company, started as a project within Google. Amazon owns Zoox. Baidu, essentially China’s Google, operates a robotaxi service. Nvidia is increasingly stepping up its game in the field too.
We’ll see what happens. Even if ByteDance isn’t diving full-bore into autonomous vehicles, it’s making moves to become more entrenched in the auto industry. The company partnered with Chinese automaker Seres earlier this year to reshape how in-car smart cabins are utilized by drivers using a 30-billion parameter version of its Doubao model that could be run locally inside of the car.
Plus, ByteDance and Seres formally launched their joint automotive brand, AIVA (“Artificial Intelligence Voyage Ahead“), last month, which is an attempt to build an AI-centric car from the ground-up. AIVA’s first car, the AIVA ME7, is planned to launch in the second-half of 2026.