Baidu launches Ernie Bot to compete in the AI chatbot market
Baidu introduces Ernie Bot in the competitive AI chatbot market, but shareholders respond negatively to its unveiling. Ernie Bot’s capabilities include answering queries about a Chinese novel and creating images from prompts, attracting interest from 650 companies for diverse applications. This move follows Baidu’s heavy investment in AI, with a $3.4 billion allocation to research and development in 2022.
Baidu, the Chinese tech giant, has unveiled its answer to ChatGPT – the AI chatbot Ernie Bot. However, it seems like investors were less than impressed when Baidu CEO Robin Li presented a prerecorded video of the chatbot, causing shares to plummet by 10%.
Even so, Li said that the chatbot had been the subject of high demand, and 650 companies have already signed up to use it for various applications, including searches, AI cloud, autonomous driving, and smart devices.
During the demonstration, Ernie Bot showed off its skills by answering questions about a popular Chinese science-fiction novel, ‘The Three-Body Problem’, and created images based on prompts. This launch comes after Baidu shifted its focus to AI in recent years, spending $3.4 billion on research and development in 2022.
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