Seedance takes over the internet

ByteDance's new video AI ignites the internet, China's tech veterans return with startup ambitions, and Anthropic lands in hot water in India.

Read from your browser The Prompt Welcome to The Prompt, your Monday dive into the world of AI that puts Asia front and center. From Big Tech's power players to the region's scrappy disruptors, we cover it all. Subscribe to get full access to our AI reporting. Ensure our articles appear in your Google searches: Hello Betamax, Seedance 2.0, a new video generation model from ByteDance, has been taking over the internet this past week. In one instance, the model was used to recreate an old meme of actor Will Smith eating spaghetti - only now, he's fighting a spaghetti monster like in an action movie. Another user created a video showing a battle between a giant cat and Ultraman above a city. The cat won. Not to mention there have been whole movie scenes reimagined using Seedance. They look so real that they seem to come straight from the original films. While many commenters believe Seedance's potential could replace Hollywood, Game Science CEO Feng Ji said the new model marks the end of the "childhood" phase of AI-generated content. Game Science is the studio behind the popular video game Black Myth: Wukong. That moment isn't happening in isolation. China's tech giants remain formidable forces in AI -- and so do the founders and engineers who have spun out of them. Two former employees of Alibaba and ByteDance are building new AI companies: Singdata and Chance AI, respectively. Both are featured in our top AI reads this week. Zooming out, the regional race is also broadening. Singapore is making a deliberate bid to strengthen its AI standing. Alongside fresh programs and tax incentives to drive enterprise adoption, the prime minister is personally chairing a new AI council. Yet the global AI sprint has been anything but smooth. Anthropic, which recently announced a US$30 billion fundraise, has been dominating headlines all week. A suite of new updates from the firm sent India's IT stocks on a tumble, an Indian firm filed a lawsuit against the company, and it saw a high-profile resignation over AI's existential risks. The AI story is moving fast, so catch up on everything you need to know here. Jofie Yordan, journalist WHAT WE THINK 1️⃣ Is OpenAI trying to predict the future, or shape it? OpenAI has just hired a chief futurist. In the announcement, Josh Achiam, the person who was hired for the role, explained that his job is to study how the world will change in response to AI and to ensure that the technology benefits all of humanity. The chief futurist role itself is not entirely new - several companies such as Deloitte, Ford Motor Company, and J.P. Morgan have people in similar positions. However, the biggest challenge of this post is managing unpredictable technology and human behavior. It's like being a weather forecaster; they can make educated guesses, but no one can control the storms themselves. For OpenAI, now the world's largest AI company, this role may be important in anticipating the rapid changes driven by the tech. With its enormous influence, OpenAI will be responsible for a large share of these transitions. Still, the chief futurist position raises a question: How much of the future can one person really map out inside a company that is actively shaping it? As OpenAI releases more powerful tools, the chief futurist's job may be less about predicting distant possibilities and more about dealing with the immediate social and political effects of each new model launch. 2️⃣ Vibe coding has a long way to go London-based tech firm Nothing has just released a beta version of Essential Apps that allows users to vibe code and create apps on their smartphones. Users only need to describe the app they want in plain language, and Essential will immediately deploy it to their phones. Still, issues abound. While it's fun and empowering to create apps using simple prompts, the problem is that vibe coding often struggles with real-world complexity. For example, the apps may lack solid features or can fail and behave unpredictably. For now, it may be best for developers to use vibe coding only for prototyping rather than releasing it as a final product. In Nothing's case, its vibe coding platform is aimed at general users rather than professional developers. TOP AI READS FROM OUR DESK 1️⃣ The AI reckoning threatening India's software assembly line Indian IT services stocks plunged after new AI agents from Anthropic showed they can automate entire enterprise workflows that are typically handled by junior consultants and programmers. The sell-off reflects investor fears that AI could break the industry's long-standing headcount-driven, billable-hours business model. The shift puts pressure on companies that have long depended on large pools of workers to drive growth. If fewer people are needed to deliver the same projects, firms may have to rethink how they price services and where future revenue will come from. 2️⃣ Ex-Alibaba team builds Asia's answer to Databricks Ethan Yu, a former Oracle and Alibaba Cloud executive, founded Singdata and likened the company to the "Databricks of Asia." The firm offers a cloud data platform that enables near real-time data processing for AI use cases. Singdata's pitch may point to a growing need among Asian companies for data platforms that can run on both US and Chinese cloud services. This comes as geopolitical tensions make businesses more cautious about relying too heavily on a single tech ecosystem. 3️⃣ Ex-ByteDance exec bets cameras beat chatbots in $3m AI play Chance AI, founded by former ByteDance executive Xi Zeng, has raised US$3 million to build an AI app that works through phone cameras and future devices like smart glasses. With more than 200,000 downloads, the app aims to explain what users see instead of just naming objects. This puts the startup in the same direction as big tech companies like Meta and Microsoft, which are also adding more visual AI features. By launching early, Chance AI may hope to build habits with users before those larger players fully roll out their own tools. STANDOUT AI DEALS 1️⃣ AI startup nabs $100 million to help firms predict human behavior US-based Simile uses AI to predict what people might do, like what products they'll buy or questions they might ask on earnings calls. Companies such as CVS Health have been testing it, and the US$100 million funding from Index Ventures and AI experts shows investors are excited about Simile's potential to help businesses make smarter choices. 2️⃣South Korea AI biotech Galux raises $29m in series B The company is using AI to create new proteins and antibodies that could lead to better medicines. The new capital will let the South Korean biotech firm boost its AI platform, grow its research labs, and push preclinical testing forward. 3️⃣Sequoia-backed healthtech AI platform Anterior nets $40m Anterior takes a different approach to AI in healthcare. It integrates AI directly into clinical workflows for health plans, making AI work side by side with clinicians to actually get tasks done. It has expanded deployments across major US health plans, supporting organizations that cover over 50 million lives. RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT Generative AI is intensifying work, not reducing it AI has been widely seen as a tool to make human work easier. However, an in-progress study from Harvard Business Review found that generative AI did not reduce workloads but instead intensified them, as employees worked faster, took on more tasks, and extended their working hours. Over time, this leads to fatigue, burnout, and weaker decision-making. The researchers argue that companies need clear "AI practices" to set norms and limits. Otherwise, AI will make work harder to stop rather than easier. Catch up on past issues of the newsletter here. In the meantime, if you have any feedback or ideas, feel free to get in touch with Huong, our managing editor, at huong@techinasia.com. ADVERTISE | SUBSCRIBE | HIRE | FIND JOBS P.S. Don't miss out on the biggest tech news and analysis. Add newsletter@techinasia.com to your address book, contacts, or safe sender list. Or simply move us into your inbox. Tech in Asia thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Too many emails? Switch to a different frequency or get new content through our preference center, or unsubscribe. You can also remove yourself from all Tech in Asia emails over here. Copyright © 2026 Tech in Asia, All rights reserved. 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