ByteDance Releases Seedream 5.0 Lite with Real-Time Retrieval and Professional Knowledge Bases

ByteDance's Seed team has unveiled Seedream 5.0 Lite, an upgraded AI image-generation model that introduces real-time retrieval capabilities and built-in professional knowledge bases for complex logical reasoning tasks. The model, released on February 13, 2026, is now available on the Volcano Engine Ark experience center and represents a significant advancement in multimodal AI systems.

The new model delivers comprehensive improvements across three key areas: cross-modal understanding and reasoning, precise instruction following, and real-time retrieval capabilities. These enhancements are designed to help the model better interpret user intent and incorporate broader world knowledge into both text and image creation.

A standout feature of Seedream 5.0 Lite is its real-time retrieval capability, marking the first time ByteDance has integrated live knowledge access into its image generation system. This allows the model to access up-to-date online information to respond to time-sensitive creative requests, representing a step toward unified multimodal systems that combine content generation with live knowledge access.

Beyond retrieval, Seedream 5.0 Lite incorporates Chain of Thought (CoT) reasoning capabilities, enabling the model to move from simple "recognition" to deeper "understanding." The system includes built-in professional knowledge bases in specialized domains such as bioscience and architectural design, allowing for more complex logical reasoning and multi-step inference tasks.

The model is accessible through ByteDance's all-in-one AI creation platform "Jimeng" under the "Image 5.0 Preview" option. According to Volcano Engine, the model's API service will be launched on the Volcano Engine Ark platform in mid-to-late February, making it available for broader integration into third-party applications.

This release positions ByteDance competitively in the rapidly evolving generative AI landscape, where the ability to combine creative generation with real-time knowledge retrieval is becoming increasingly important. The integration of professional knowledge bases suggests ByteDance is targeting enterprise and specialized use cases beyond general image generation.