Cici is the AI chatbot from the creators of TikTok
Emphasis has never been more slaughtered than by Cici. That’s our initial reaction to trying out TikTok maker ByteDance’s AI chatbot. ByteDance is not yet advertising it much, but this chatbot is already being widely discussed by influencers in the United Kingdom and Indonesia, among others.
Cici from ByteDance
That’s undoubtedly because she sounds a lot better in English. After hearing that Cici is the #9 most popular free app in the UK App Store.
AI chatbot with an identity crisis
Clearly, this AI chatbot has more personality. While you’re talking to her, you keep looking at Cici’s avatar, which you also see above the article. That gives it a slightly more personal feeling, even though you know it is AI. Unfortunately, some things reduce that personal aspect, with language being number 1. For example, when setting up you see the menus in non-English, but in the conversation itself the suggestions are in English. She can also very easily create an AI image, also based on a submitted photo, but you have to press a button called Edit Image.
All in all, Cici therefore feels a bit like she is having an identity crisis and that is a shame. Especially because if you ask her to translate something, she does it in an instant. This app also has a calling function, where you can have a kind of conversation with her. She then speaks English to you, but if you say you want to speak in other language, she talks back in that strange heavy accent with those strange accents.
Not so smooth
So it is not nearly as smoothly operating an AI chatbot as we are used to, for example, from OpenAI and Google. You can also often ask for little information, because she cannot use information from third parties. Even if you ask if she’ll send you some fun TikTok videos, she won’t give you an answer.
We can forgive her for that language barrier, but it must come with something that other AI chatbots do not have or do not have as well. Unfortunately, this AI chatbot does not have that much of a problem, although it is nice to speak to a chatbot that at least pretends to have a personality. One that is still in its infancy and does not yet really offer that unique point that TikTok had all those years ago.