Sergey Diakov
⬤ ByteDance rolled out China's most budget-friendly AI coding agent at just $1.30 monthly. The TikTok parent company's cloud division is undercutting global competitors by a wide margin, ramping up the AI coding price war in China. This rock-bottom pricing puts ByteDance front and center in the race to deliver affordable AI tools to developers and businesses.
⬤ ByteDance's approach reflects its mission to "Inspire Creativity, Enrich Life" as it expands deeper into digital services. China is training AI models at a fraction of the cost compared to other markets, then offering access at incredibly low prices. Industry observers point out that major players like Anthropic and OpenAI aren't profitable at current pricing levels. These companies are banking on customer lock-in, hoping margins will improve once businesses become dependent on their platforms. This raises serious questions about how competitors can match ByteDance's ultra-low $1.30 monthly price point.
⬤ Meanwhile, OpenAI is testing group chats in ChatGPT where multiple users and the AI can work together in one conversation. People can plan trips, make decisions, and tackle school or work projects as a team while ChatGPT helps summarize ideas, brainstorm solutions, or mediate discussions. The company is rolling out this feature on web and mobile to select regions, with privacy protections, profile controls, custom instructions, and extra safeguards for younger users.
⬤ Some analysts are drawing parallels between today's AI race and the 2008 financial crisis shown in "The Big Short." Back then, banks got bailouts while regular people absorbed the losses. If an AI-driven catastrophe caused similar economic damage, would governments step in again? ByteDance's dirt-cheap AI coding agent and the profit struggles of other AI providers highlight not just fierce price competition, but growing concerns about whether the financial and tech systems supporting the AI boom can actually hold up.
Sergey Diakov
