According to reports from self-media, Hang Li, the head of ByteDance's AI Lab (AILab), has officially stepped down and transitioned to a labor/consulting role. This personnel change was foreshadowed earlier, signaling a major adjustment in ByteDance's core team in the field of artificial intelligence.
Hang Li's position change began on February 21, 2025, when Yonghui Wu, former vice president of Google DeepMind, joined ByteDance as the head of fundamental research for the large model Seed. Since then, as the director of AILab, Hang Li began reporting to Yonghui Wu.
It is reported that ByteDance’s AI Lab was established in 2016, initially led by Weijing Ma, the former executive vice president of Microsoft Research Asia, who directly reported to Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance. By 2018, the team had grown to 150 people and became the core department of ByteDance’s AI research. In 2020, the AI Lab transitioned from a group-level forward-looking project to a technical platform, supporting multiple business teams within ByteDance. Weijing Ma’s reporting object also changed to Zhang Nan, the head of Douyin.
In mid-2020, after Weijing Ma left ByteDance, Hang Li took over as the head of AI Lab. Since then, the team has undergone several reorganizations. Starting in 2023, the NLP group responsible for large language models and the PixleDance group responsible for video generation models were transferred to the Seed team. In 2024, Hang Li began reporting to Wenjia Zhu, the then head of Seed.
The field of AI is entering an era full of opportunities and challenges, where technological innovation, ethical considerations, and market competition will collectively shape its future development.
