Doubao Pro Launched: Office Agent Capabilities Tested and Pricing Controversy

In June 2026, ByteDance's AI assistant Doubao launched a professional edition with three subscription tiers (68, 200, 500 yuan), featuring an 'office task mode' Agent that autonomously decomposes goals, calls tools, executes tasks, and delivers results. Pricing comparisons with domestic competitors (Zhipu GLM Pro 49-469 yuan, Kimi 49-699 yuan, Xiaomi MiMo 39-659 yuan, ByteDance Trae Work 59-1399 yuan) show domestic AI pro versions approaching $20/month, raising cost concerns. Real-world tests by Z Finance demonstrated strong Agent performance in automatic weekly reports, industry PPTs, no-code website building, financial report analysis, and literature reviews, with accurate data and multi-step execution. However, a complex creative coding test (astronomical clock) revealed stability issues: Doubao 2.1 Pro took 26 minutes but had 5 code errors and failed to run. In contrast, end-to-end engineering delivery tests by Datawhale showed Seed 2.1 Pro successfully built a full-stack paper-graph-manager system from a single requirement, demonstrating robust capabilities in requirement understanding, code engineering, and long-chain Agent execution. Overall, Doubao Pro marks a shift from free growth to monetization for a national-level AI app, but whether its Agent capabilities justify the pricing remains to be seen.