Anyone who buys TikTok will struggle to replicate the app's magic if the purchase doesn't include its recommendation algorithm, experts say.
Technology experts told Business Insider that TikTok's recommendation algorithm was stronger than those of rivals partly because the company had access to extensive training data. TikTok is thought to be wrangling over whether it can sell its recommendation algorithms to a US buyer as part of a wider deal, thanks to new Chinese rules. "I think you can still replicate a lot of the magic of the algorithm if they were going to give you all the user data and all the video data, but you'd have to be willing to support that entire process," said Eugene Wei, a product expert who wrote a popular blog post analyzing the algorithm.