TikTok's substantial user base has migrated to Xiaohongshu, and the future holds challenges for Xiaohongshu, as it will test the limits of its content security and explore the boundaries of its AI capabilities.

Written by | Lan Dong Business, Zhao Weiwei

Xiaohongshu is evidently not yet prepared to accommodate the sudden influx of TikTok users from the US.

At present, in the comment sections of many English-language Xiaohongshu posts by American users, it is Chinese users who are summarizing the content in Chinese, with no AI automatic translation system in place. There are also numerous calls for Xiaohongshu to upgrade its algorithms and real-time translation features, including from investor Zhu Xiaohu in a celebratory post on Xiaohongshu.

Optimists view this as a marketing triumph for Xiaohongshu, which has long pursued internationalization. As one of the few Chinese apps in the US App Store, Xiaohongshu topped the free chart, significantly boosting its visibility and influence in the US market.

However, pessimists see this influx of traffic as both a blessing and a potential threat to Xiaohongshu.

The fundamental challenge is that there is currently no content platform in China that can simultaneously cater to both Chinese and foreign user groups. The inherent differences in content review mechanisms create immense pressure on domestic operations. Whether it's Douyin's overseas version TikTok, WeChat's overseas version WeChat, or Pinduoduo's overseas version Temu, they are all products tailored to the overseas market environment.

In the face of the long-term goal of internationalization, the more immediate and crucial challenge for Xiaohongshu is how to stabilize this surge in traffic.

This poses a hurdle for Xiaohongshu's large AI model capabilities. The question is how to create an appropriate product atmosphere for overseas users and how to make Xiaohongshu's product foundation more adaptable to future development needs. Otherwise, this surge in traffic will be short-lived.

More urgently, Xiaohongshu needs to address the language barrier and enable AI translation to facilitate interaction between Chinese and foreign users across different scenarios.

"Plan B" for Xiaohongshu?

The primary reason for the influx of TikTok users is to find an alternative platform in their final act of defiance.

In fact, alongside Xiaohongshu, Lemon8 also topped the free chart in the US App Store. Lemon8, ByteDance's overseas imitation of Xiaohongshu, focuses on a lifestyle community and is therefore nicknamed "Little Yellow Book".

For American users, both are Chinese internet products, and TikTok users are choosing them as a way to counter the impending TikTok ban. The US government's rationale for banning TikTok is that its parent company is Chinese, so the best way to combat data flowing to China is to directly use Chinese internet products.

January 19th is the final effective date of the US TikTok "sell or ban" order. Last week, there was still no sign of a turnaround in TikTok's arguments before the US Supreme Court, which has become the most direct reason for a large number of American TikTok users to accelerate their migration.

On Xiaohongshu, posts with the hashtag #TikTokrefugee# (TikTok refugees) once exceeded 72,000, with about 34 million views.

TikTok and Xiaohongshu are starkly different. TikTok focuses on entertaining video sharing, while Xiaohongshu emphasizes lifestyle photo and text note sharing. Despite these differences, as an app hovering around the top ten positions in the US App Store's free chart, Xiaohongshu's description is entirely in Chinese, with no English adaptation, and there is no restriction that only Chinese phone numbers can be used for registration, making it easily noticeable to American TikTok users.

This external environment makes Xiaohongshu a viable "plan B" for TikTok, and revisions to Xiaohongshu's products have also become internal factors that have assisted in this migration.

Analysts tend to believe that Xiaohongshu may have anticipated the migration of TikTok users and has already engaged in international marketing, finding some KOCs (Key Opinion Consumers) overseas to promote the platform. The Wall Street Journal revealed that over the past few days, a large number of video clips have appeared on TikTok teaching users how to correctly pronounce "Xiaohongshu", which has, to some extent, driven TikTok users to Xiaohongshu.

Xiaohongshu also underwent product revisions last year, such as revising the video playback interface to accelerate videoization and adjusting the position of interaction buttons, which some see as making it more like Douyin.

With the support of both internal and external conditions, Xiaohongshu, as the "plan B", has become the recipient of this massive influx of traffic. But how long this situation will last remains unclear, as symbolic protest and long-term operation are two different things.

TikTok has 170 million users in the US and has developed a mature business model and marketing system. Xiaohongshu officially reports a monthly active user base of 300 million, while according to Sensor Tower data, Xiaohongshu had about 1.3 million mobile users in the US in December last year. Currently, Xiaohongshu topping the US App Store's free chart is an unprecedented achievement.

However, for American Xiaohongshu users, the primary issue is understanding the Chinese content on Xiaohongshu, as there is no basic automatic translation function available.

Xiaohongshu's AI Exam

TikTok's massive traffic has been directed to Xiaohongshu, and the future will test the limits of Xiaohongshu's content security and explore the upper bounds of its AI capabilities. So, how are Xiaohongshu's AI capabilities?

Over the past two years, large models have been a battle that internet companies cannot afford to lose. Compared to other internet companies that have launched their own large models for external users to use and compete for market share, Xiaohongshu's path to large models has been relatively cautious. Its most well-known product to date is the independent lifestyle search product "DianDian", launched in 2024.

Search is a high-frequency use scenario on Xiaohongshu, and the AI scenario that Xiaohongshu users are more familiar with may be the in-app search function called Sousoushu. Whenever a relevant question is searched within the app, Sousoushu will automatically generate an answer based on the data of in-app notes and recommend related content.

But can Xiaohongshu's large model's translation capabilities come into play with the arrival of TikTok's massive traffic? Taking "DianDian" as an example, the outlook is not optimistic at present.

"DianDian" can achieve real-time text translation capabilities that are available on the market's large models, but its most obvious weakness lies in the amount of text it can handle. Currently, DianDian only supports simple questions. If the input content is too long, it will prompt that "the number of question characters is limited to below 500 words". In other words, if long text translation is required, "DianDian" cannot satisfy it in one go and requires multiple rounds of dialogue. Similar products like Doubao and Kimi have already achieved long text capabilities.

The shortcoming of lacking long text input is obvious and is likely due to computational power limitations. But at the same time, "DianDian" supports OCR (Optical Character Recognition) for image text recognition. If more than 500 words of English are input in the form of an image, "DianDian" can recognize the image content and translate it in real-time, thus avoiding the limitation on the number of question characters. This is a simple workaround.

Therefore, Xiaohongshu's AI capabilities, especially its online text translation capabilities, are the first major test it faces with the arrival of this massive influx of traffic. To achieve the steady development of retaining TikTok users on Xiaohongshu, it is necessary to create a language environment that American users can adapt to, especially enabling AI translation to facilitate interaction between Chinese and foreign users in different scenarios, thereby achieving efficient matching of content and users.

Serving users with such a vision is also the proper meaning of Xiaohongshu's technological development.

Last July, at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Wang Xiaobo, Xiaohongshu's Vice President of Technology, shared Xiaohongshu's exploration in the field of large models. He mentioned, "We hope to enhance the capabilities of multimodal large models so that AI can increasingly resemble humans, able to understand Xiaohongshu's content, not only by reading notes, images, and text, but also by organizing content and answering questions. It can also assist users in creating content more conveniently and, through deep understanding of content and users, better establish the relevance and matching efficiency between content and users."

Over the past two years, large model technology has driven rapid advancements in the AI capabilities of internet products. In 2023, Xiaohongshu developed its own large model base "Xiaodigua", AI painting product "Trik", and AI conversation product "Davinic" (Da Vinci). Unfortunately, both AI application products disappeared in 2024, with Trik being taken down due to copyright issues and Da Vinci's Xiaohongshu page also ceasing updates.

Will Xiaohongshu's shortcomings in AI applications be addressed? How can AI be integrated into Xiaohongshu's ecosystem without creating a sense of incongruity in the authentic community? These are genuine propositions that will test Xiaohongshu in the future.

At the end of 2024, Xiaohongshu welcomed its new Chief Strategy Officer, Dai Lidan. Dai, previously a partner at Capital Today, is now focusing on the field of AI applications at Xiaohongshu, which is seen as one of the signals that Xiaohongshu is accelerating its embrace of AI.

Xiaohongshu Must Lead the Way for Instagram

Xiaohongshu has always been seen as a competitor to Instagram in the US. Initially, their product forms were similar, with users sharing their beautiful lives through images. However, relying on more practical information and diverse content, Xiaohongshu now has a significant advantage over Instagram in the domestic market and has evolved into a new generation of "lifestyle platform and consumer decision-making entry point".

In the domestic market, Xiaohongshu is a fully viable alternative to Instagram; but how can Xiaohongshu compete head-on with Instagram in the international market? This is a proposition worth considering amidst the frenzy brought about by TikTok.

In terms of AI capabilities, Xiaohongshu must at least keep pace with Instagram. Relying on the support of its parent company Meta, Instagram will enhance more AI capabilities by 2025, especially in video processing AI capabilities.

On Instagram, users can already create AI avatars with Meta AI, initiate chats with AI, and use AI to write copy. During Meta's third-quarter earnings call in 2024, Zuckerberg also mentioned that a new content category would be added in the future: content generated or summarized by AI, or existing content integrated in some way by AI, which will be exciting for the experiences on Facebook and Instagram.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, demonstrated the AI features to be launched in 2025, which can edit the appearance and background in videos based on prompts, enabling one-click changes to the video subject's clothing, background environment, adding jewelry, and changing the overall appearance, among other functions. This is said to revolutionize creators' video production methods.

Screenshot of video demonstrated by Adam Mosseri

Compared to the creative freedom easily achieved by video generation models from OpenAI and Google, Instagram's AI function focuses more on practicality and ease of use. Its demonstration does not appear distorted and maintains a natural and smooth video feel.

The AI capabilities behind all of this on Instagram come from Meta's Movie Gen AI model, a video AI project that Meta announced last year. Users can create videos and sounds with simple text, or edit existing videos. Now, Instagram has become the vanguard for the implementation of Meta's technological capabilities, and more tools for model implementation are on the way.

From Instagram's perspective, Xiaohongshu's AI capabilities are concentrated in four areas: large models, AI conversation, AI search, and AI images. Especially in terms of image capabilities, the most notable AI project Xiaohongshu introduced last year was the internally incubated innovation project InstantID, which can generate multi-style AI portraits from user photos. This open-source project attracted industry attention.

Now that Instagram has sounded the clarion call to advance into the video domain, Xiaohongshu, which focuses on short videos as its product core, naturally cannot fall behind. Therefore, Xiaohongshu, which has always been ahead of Instagram, must also present impressive AI video model capabilities to continue leading the way for Instagram in 2025.