ByteDance's AI hardware division is undergoing significant personnel changes.
According to reports, Li Haogan, core member of ByteDance's Flow division Ocean team and founder of Oladance, may be leaving the company. The specifics of his internal personnel adjustment are still uncertain, with possibilities including a transfer to another role.
Prior to founding Oladance, Li Haogan was an executive at Bose China. This pioneering figure, who led the development of OWS open-ear headphones, joined ByteDance in April 2024 with a substantial rank of 5-1, reportedly higher than many CEOs of acquired companies. However, less than two years after his high-profile recruitment, this key hardware leader's potential departure adds uncertainty to ByteDance's hardware ambitions.
More notably, a wave of departures appears to be spreading within the Ocean team. Besides Li Haogan, Liu Wenning, the Market VP with a rank believed to be 4-2, has also reportedly left, potentially to start his own venture. Before ByteDance, Liu Wenning spent nearly a decade at Ecovacs Robotics, rising to Vice President of Greater China Business. His departure after less than a year may reflect the challenges large tech companies face in executing hardware strategies.
Looking back at the "honeymoon period," Li Haogan's team was seen as ByteDance's ace for its "AI + Hardware" strategy. Their first collaborative product, the Ola Friend AI headphones, innovatively integrated the Doubao large model for voice interaction. Yet, in the highly competitive hardware market, its nearly 1,200-yuan price point was perceived as premium and failed to ignite the market as expected. This does not mean ByteDance's hardware experiments have stalled; instead, the Ocean team is demonstrating even greater ambition.
Following the recent successful launch of the Doubao mobile assistant, ByteDance's AI glasses are also poised for release. This is no longer an isolated product attempt but a systematic effort to capture AI traffic entry points. Reports indicate that Doubao AI glasses are nearing shipment, with a screen-less version expected in Q1 2026. An initial batch of approximately 100,000 units is planned, positioned more as an internal lab, prioritizing collaboration with advanced users rather than an immediate public launch. This "slow and steady" approach underscores ByteDance's cautious hardware strategy.
Examining ByteDance's broader AI hardware landscape, its team composition resembles an "Avengers" assembly of top entrepreneurs. Beyond Li Haogan's technical team, the elite force led by 36Kr founder Liu Chengcheng serves as another core engine. As early as 2022, ByteDance quietly acquired Liu Chengcheng's second-startup team and patents; this group, with deep experience in domestic operating systems, now reports directly to Flow head Zhu Jun under Liu Chengcheng's leadership. Essentially, ByteDance's entire ambition in "AI + Hardware" rests on these two acquired elite teams.
From major acquisitions to executive departures, and from headphone experiments to glasses development, ByteDance is navigating a series of personnel and product gambits, attempting to carve out a new frontier in the uncharted territory of AI hardware.
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