Baidu Releases Ernie Bot, Company Shares Drop Because It's Less Interesting

Baidu CEO, Robin Li, when releasing Erni Bot. (photo: Twitter @Baidu_Inc)

Baidu, a technology company from China, has released an artificial intelligence-based chatbot called Ernie Bot on Thursday, March 16. However, investors are disappointed with its use, which is still using prerecord videos and the absence of public launches, so Baidu's shares actually fell.

The presentation, which lasted more than an hour, shows what China's strongest competitor to ChatGPT is, the US research lab OpenAI. However, in contrast to ChatGPT, Ernie Bot is only limited to short videos that show chatbots' ability to do math calculations, speak in Chinese dialects, and create videos and images with the help of text prompts.

ERNIE Bot is a versatile model that can generate text, images, audio, dialect speech, and video.#Baidu #ERNIEBot #AI #generativeAI pic.twitter.com/NUX4MhBvkz

— Baidu Inc. (@Baidu_Inc) March 16, 2023

Only a certain group of users can try Ernie Bot with an invitation code, while companies can register chatbots into their products via the Baidu cloud platform.

Baidu's shares in Hong Kong fell as much as 10%, then closed 6.4% lower after Baidu CEO Robin Li spoke, and the company's market value fell by more than $3 billion. "This percentage looks more like a monologous and scripted, not an interactive session that people are looking for. No soft launch date has been given, which is likely to trigger negative sentiment," said Kai Wang, analyst from Morningstar, who was also quoted by Reuters.

Baidu is seen as a leader in a race in China between big tech companies and startups to develop ChatGPT competitors from Microsoft. Ernie Bot is based on Baidu's deep learning AI model, Ernie, which stands for "Enhanced Representative through Knowledge Integration".

Li himself warned that this chatbot was not perfect during a presentation at Baidu headquarters in Beijing which was also broadcast live on nine platforms. However, he said Ernie Bot was introduced due to market demand.

Baidu has been investing in various research in artificial intelligence and deep learning for years and plans to use Ernie Bot to revolutionize search engines, as well as improve efficiency in the fields of cloud, smart cars, and household appliances. "A total of 650 companies have stated that they will join Ernie's ecosystem," said Li.