ByteDance has rolled out Seedance 2.0, a new artificial intelligence model that generates video and has quickly become a viral topic on Chinese social media. The company said the system was built to handle text, images, audio and video simultaneously and is aimed at professional uses in film, e-commerce and advertising because it can reduce the cost of creating content.
The product launch has drawn wide attention at a time when investors and industry watchers are searching for a follow-up to the disruptive debut of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s R1 and V3 models. DeepSeek’s global debut early in 2025 was described in the reporting as having triggered a systemic shock, and Seedance 2.0’s rapid popularity has prompted direct comparisons to that earlier breakthrough on Chinese platforms.
State-backed outlets and social posts have amplified the conversation. An editorial in the Global Times noted that the release of DeepSeek-R1 early last year sparked intense debate in the U.S. tech community about a ’Sputnik moment’ and said the momentum surrounding Seedance 2.0 and similar developments has generated admiration for China within Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, state-owned Beijing Daily used a slogan on social platforms that read "from DeepSeek to Seedance, China’s AI has succeeded."
Public reaction took a higher profile when Elon Musk replied on X to a post praising Seedance 2.0, writing: "It’s happening fast." On domestic microblogging site Weibo, users shared clips created with Seedance 2.0 to highlight the system’s image quality and the complexity of its outputs, even when fed unconventional prompts.
One example that circulated widely was a roughly two-minute clip, viewed about a million times on Weibo, which depicted rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and reality television star Kim Kardashian as characters in a palace drama set in Imperial China, speaking and singing in Mandarin. Hashtags tied to Seedance 2.0 have accumulated tens of millions of clicks on Weibo, demonstrating rapid audience engagement.
For creators and businesses, ByteDance positions Seedance 2.0 as a tool to lower production costs and streamline content generation, citing its ability to integrate multiple media formats in a single system. The company specifically identified professional film production, e-commerce and advertising as target applications.
Investors and observers in China and overseas are watching whether Seedance 2.0 will follow DeepSeek’s trajectory and provoke similar market and industry reactions. The scale of social sharing, high-profile public attention and state media commentary have combined to keep the model at the center of conversations about the next phase of generative AI focused on video.
Available information about Seedance 2.0 so far is drawn largely from ByteDance’s announcement, social media samples and media commentary. Beyond the examples and reactions already in circulation, details about longer-term commercial adoption, regulatory scrutiny or technical limits have not been disclosed in the material covered in these reports.