The Chinese IT company Baidu is considered Google’s biggest rival. The AI now presented, on the other hand, aims in the direction of ChatGPT – albeit with a consequence that the company had probably not intended.
China’s largest search engine operator Baidu presented the intelligent chatbot “Ernie” to a select group of business people. However, the artificial intelligence did not cause enthusiasm, the AI lags far behind the polarizing ChatGPT. According to ” Handelsblatt “, the company sees itself as one of the leading providers in the field of artificial intelligence.
Baidu founder and boss Robin Li is also dissatisfied with the result: “I can’t say that we are completely ready”. He also knows that the Ernie bot is not yet perfect.
share price falls
The presentation of the AI had a consequence that Baidu certainly did not intend: Investors in the Chinese Internet group reacted cautiously to the presentation of the new chatbot, which led to the share plummeting. The Hong Kong stock exchange had to accept a minus of more than six percent.
pressure to innovate
The current dominance of ChatGPT has meanwhile prompted several companies to react quickly. Last month, Google presented its intelligent chatbot “Bard”. Baidu boss Li is also aware of the current pressure to innovate in order to be able to keep up with the US corporations Microsoft and Google.”Why are we presenting this today? Because the market demands it,” Li justifies the possibly premature presentation of the AI software. There seems to be a need to catch up, especially when it comes to English-language content. In addition, the presentation of the Chinese chatbot did not take place in real time, but seemed to have been scripted and pre-produced in advance.
interest of companies
Despite the disappointing presentation, Baidu has signed initial deals with Chinese state media. In addition, 650 companies are said to have already expressed interest in the “Ernie” chatbot.
