ByteDance SeedRealtime: New AI Model That Sees, Hears, and Talks in Real Time
ByteDance has launched SeedRealtime, a native audio-visual full-duplex large language model that can process audio, video, and text streams simultaneously. Moreover, the model can listen and respond in real time, creating a more natural conversational experience. The company has already integrated SeedRealtime into its Doubao app, allowing users to access the technology directly.
Unlike traditional voice assistants, which usually follow a turn-by-turn interaction style, SeedRealtime is designed to watch, listen, and speak at the same moment. Additionally, the model combines audio, visual, and time-based information to understand conversations more accurately. It can identify the interaction target and recognize user intent while maintaining a smooth dialogue flow.
According to ByteDance Seed’s official blog, one major challenge the team solved was conversational rhythm. Therefore, the model focuses on making its speech output feel natural instead of mechanical.
Expanding Full-Duplex AI Capabilities
SeedRealtime builds on ByteDance’s previous developments in full-duplex speech technology. In April 2026, the company introduced Seeduplex, which it described as the first native full-duplex speech LLM. Furthermore, Seeduplex replaced the earlier half-duplex system in the Doubao app and enabled continuous real-time voice conversations.
Now, SeedRealtime extends that foundation by adding native video understanding. As a result, the model can support multimodal interactions that go beyond voice-based communication. It can combine what it hears and sees to deliver more human-like responses.
ByteDance Strengthens Its AI Ecosystem
Meanwhile, SeedRealtime has joined ByteDance Seed’s growing collection of AI products. Recently, the company introduced Seed 2.1, its flagship language model family, in June 2026. Additionally, ByteDance launched Seedance 2.5 on July 31, a video generation model that supports 30-second single-shot clips and up to 50 multimodal reference inputs.
Furthermore, the company has released Seedream 5.0 Pro for image generation and Seed Audio 1.0, according to its product page. Therefore, the launch of SeedRealtime highlights ByteDance’s broader strategy of moving advanced AI research into consumer products quickly.
Finally, bringing SeedRealtime to the Doubao app, one of China’s leading AI assistants, shows ByteDance’s focus on delivering large-scale multimodal AI experiences directly to users.
