What is Dola AI? ByteDance’s ChatGPT rival explained, and why you can’t get it in the US

Dola is ByteDance’s ChatGPT-style AI assistant for the world outside China: a free app for chatting, writing, translating and making images and videos, run by ByteDance’s Singapore company SPRING (SG) Pte. Ltd. and formerly known as Cici. It has more than 100 million downloads on Google Play, and it is the 10th most popular productivity app on Apple’s UK App Store. But you can’t get it in the US: Dola isn’t in the American App Store or Google Play, and its website tells US visitors that “Dola is not available in this country or region”. Here’s what Dola is, what it costs, where it works, and what it does with your chats.

Last checked: November 3, 2026, against Dola’s App Store listings in 36 countries, its Google Play listing, its terms of service, privacy policy and Trust Center.

What is Dola AI?

Dola is an all-round AI assistant, much like ChatGPT, Gemini or Meta AI. Its App Store listing describes it as “your all-in-one AI assistant for writing, thinking, and creating”, and the Trust Center lists what it does:

• Chat and search: answer questions, search the web, and summarise files, articles and web pages.
• Writing and translation: drafts, reports and language practice in more than 16 languages, including Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Indonesian.
• Images and video: turn a text idea or a photo into AI art in styles “from cyberpunk to anime”, edit photos by describing the change, and generate short videos.
• Voice: talk to it instead of typing, including voice calls.

It runs on iPhone, iPad and Android, on the web at dola.com and as a desktop app. It first appeared on the App Store on August 15, 2024 as Cici, and has since been renamed Dola: some App Store listings still call it “Dola: Formerly Cici”, and the app’s code name is still com.bot.cici.

Is Dola owned by ByteDance? Is it Chinese?

Dola is made by ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. Its name doesn’t appear in the app, but ByteDance’s own AI research team, Seed, lists Dola among ByteDance’s products on its website, beside the image app Dreamina, the cloud service BytePlus, the work app Lark and the video editor CapCut, with a “Try Dola” button. Seed has even named one of its large AI models after it: it launched Dola-Seed-2.0-Preview on February 16, 2026, calling it “one of our latest general-purpose multimodal models”.

The company you sign up with is SPRING (SG) Pte. Ltd., registered at 36 Robinson Road in Singapore. Dola’s terms are governed by Singapore law, and its privacy policy says it shares your information with members of its “Corporate Group”. One line in the policy gives the game away: Brazilian users are told to contact the data protection officer at a bytedance.com email address.

In China itself, ByteDance runs a different assistant, Doubao. Dola isn’t in the Chinese App Store.

Is Dola free? Dola Plus, Pro and Max prices

Dola is free to download and use. On the free plan, the app’s listing says, you get basic chat and web search, chatting about images and web pages, and “a limited number of times each day” for its work tools, image and video generation and voice calls. Three paid plans, Plus, Pro and Max, raise those limits and add “Pro mode”, more advanced image and video generation, spreadsheet tasks and research across text, images and files.

Prices vary by country. These are the App Store prices on November 3, 2026:

Eurozone prices are from the German and Irish App Stores. In Brazil, Plus is R$129.90 a month. Prices on Google Play or the website may differ.

Read the refund rules before you pay. Dola’s terms say there are “no refunds” because the service is available straight away, apart from a 14-day right of withdrawal for users in the EU, and anything bought through the App Store or Google Play follows Apple’s or Google’s refund rules.

Which countries have Dola? Is it available in the UK?

Dola doesn’t publish a list of countries, so we checked Apple’s App Store in 36 countries on November 3, 2026. It’s in 32 of them, and missing from four: the US, Canada, India and mainland China.

Some guides say Dola is blocked in Australia. It isn’t: it’s in the Australian App Store, and its terms include rules for Australian users.

The UK is one of Dola’s biggest markets. The app has more than 36,000 ratings on the UK App Store, behind only Vietnam (62,000), Mexico (40,000) and Thailand (34,000) among the countries we checked. In Europe, its terms include a section for the EU’s Digital Services Act, and its privacy policy has a section for users in the EU, UK and Switzerland. Google Play lists Dola in the UK, Germany, Australia and India, but not in the US.

Using a VPN to get round a block breaks the terms, which bar any attempt to “bypass any measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Services”, and Dola can close accounts that do.

Why isn’t Dola available in the USA?

Dola hasn’t said why it skips the US, Canada and India. In the US, though, the law would make it hard to offer. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed in April 2024 to force a sale of TikTok, makes it unlawful for app stores and web hosts to distribute, maintain or update any app or website “operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate)” by ByteDance, Ltd. App stores that break it face fines of up to $5,000 for every US user. Dola, run by a ByteDance company in Singapore, falls squarely inside that definition.

India blocked TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps in 2020, and ByteDance’s apps have stayed out since. Canada ordered TikTok’s Canadian business to close in 2024 on national security grounds, though it didn’t ban the app.

Is Dola safe? What it does with your data

Dola is a mainstream app from one of the world’s biggest tech companies, not a scam, but it collects a lot. According to its privacy policy and its App Store privacy label, it collects:

• Everything you give it: your prompts and chat history, uploaded files, voice recordings and photos.
• Your device and location: IP address, device identifiers and an approximate location worked out from your IP address. The App Store label says identifiers “may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies”.
• Guesses about you: the policy says Dola “may infer your likely preferences and other attributes, such as gender, age and hobbies”.

It uses that information to run and personalise the service and to train its AI models, unless you opt out. For users in Europe and the UK, data may be stored on servers in Malaysia, Singapore and Japan, and “certain entities in our corporate group”, based outside your country, may be given “limited remote access” to it. Dola says it uses encryption and access controls, and that people and automated systems review content that breaks its rules.

Dola itself warns you not to share sensitive information: its terms say “Please avoid submitting sensitive personal or confidential information as Input”. That is sensible advice for any chatbot, but the ByteDance link is why governments and many employers treat Chinese-owned apps more cautiously. If you’re weighing up other assistants too, our AI chatbot privacy comparison sets out what OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Apple do with your chats.

Dola is for people aged 13 and over (18 in some countries, or younger with a parent’s consent). The Trust Center says under-18s get extra safeguards and some features are switched off for them.

How to stop Dola using your chats to train its AI

Dola lets you switch off three things in the app’s settings, according to its Trust Center:

1. Model training: the use of your chats “to improve our services”. The privacy policy says you can opt out “by navigating to your account settings and switching off the relevant toggle”.
2. Memory: Dola remembering past chats to tailor its answers.
3. Personalisation: suggested prompts based on what Dola knows about you.

To delete your account and its chats, use the option on the settings page or email [email protected]. Deleting is permanent: the terms say you can’t get your content back afterwards. Privacy questions go to [email protected].

Dola vs ChatGPT: is Dola better?

Dola’s pitch is a lot for free: daily image and video generation and voice calls on the free plan, which other assistants often keep for paying users. Its Plus plan costs about the same as ChatGPT Plus. ByteDance doesn’t say which AI model answers your questions in the app, though its Seed team names its Dola-Seed models after it.

Against that, Dola is missing from the US, Canada and India, its data goes to a ByteDance company, and its refund rules are strict. If you mainly want a capable free chatbot and don’t mind the ByteDance link, Dola is worth a try where it’s available. If privacy is your priority, or you’d use it for work, look at its settings first or choose an assistant whose owner you’re more comfortable with. Our guide to where DeepSeek is banned explains how governments are treating another Chinese AI app.

Frequently asked questions

What is Dola AI?

Dola is ByteDance’s AI assistant for users outside China, formerly called Cici. It chats, searches the web, writes, translates, summarises files and makes images and short videos, on iPhone, Android, the web and desktop. It is free, with paid Plus, Pro and Max plans.

Is Dola owned by TikTok?

Dola is made by ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok. It is run by ByteDance’s Singapore company, SPRING (SG) Pte. Ltd., and ByteDance’s Seed research team lists it among ByteDance’s products.

Is Dola AI available in the USA?

No. As of November 3, 2026, Dola isn’t in the US App Store or Google Play, and its website shows US visitors a message saying it isn’t available in their country or region. It also isn’t in the App Store in Canada, India or mainland China.

Is Dola AI free?

Yes. The free plan includes basic chat, web search and chatting about images and web pages, plus a limited number of daily uses of image and video generation, work tools and voice calls. Paid plans start at £19.90, €22.90 or A$29.90 a month for Plus.

Is Dola AI safe to use?

It is a mainstream app, but it collects your chats, files, voice recordings, photos, IP address and device identifiers, uses them to train its AI unless you opt out, and shares data within ByteDance’s corporate group. Don’t put anything sensitive into it, and switch off model training in the settings.

Is Dola the same as Cici?

Yes. Cici was renamed Dola. It is the same app, with the same App Store listing, from the same ByteDance company, SPRING (SG) Pte. Ltd.

Is Dola the same as Doubao?

No, but they are siblings. Doubao is ByteDance’s AI assistant in China, and Dola is its separate app for the rest of the world. Dola isn’t available in mainland China.

Is Dola available in the UK and Australia?

Yes. Dola is in the UK and Australian App Stores and Google Play, and its terms and privacy policy include sections for both countries. The UK is one of its biggest markets, with more than 36,000 App Store ratings.

Can I use Dola with a VPN?

Dola’s terms forbid trying to bypass the measures it uses to restrict access, and it can suspend or close accounts that break its terms, so using a VPN to reach it from a blocked country risks losing your account.

Can I get a refund on Dola Plus?

Dola’s terms say there are no refunds because the service is available immediately, except where the law requires one, such as the 14-day withdrawal right in the EU. If you paid through the App Store or Google Play, you ask Apple or Google instead.

Sources: Dola Terms of Service (updated September 4, 2026); Dola Privacy Policy; Dola Trust Center; Apple App Store: Dola (36 country storefronts); Google Play: Dola; ByteDance Seed and its Dola-Seed-2.0-Preview post; Public Law 118-50, Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.