Baidu unveils ERNIE Bot, China's first big-tech answer to ChatGPT

Background

ERNIE Bot was Baidu's answer to ChatGPT, and it was presented as the chatbot that would bring Baidu's large language models to users.

What happened

Robin Li presented ERNIE Bot at a Beijing event on 16 March 2023 and opened it to invited testers.^[1][2] The demonstration was pre-recorded rather than live.^[3][1]

In his remarks, Li said that "for sure we cannot say that it's perfect," but that Baidu was unveiling the product "because the market demands it." He said 650 companies had signed up to use it.^[1]

Generative AI refers to models that produce new text, images or other content in response to a prompt. A chatbot built on a large language model answers questions in conversational form. Invite-only testing means that only a selected group of people can use a product, usually so that the company can collect feedback before a wider release. A pre-recorded demonstration is a video shown in place of a live demonstration, which means viewers cannot judge in real time how the system behaves. Share price moves on the day of a launch reflect investors' expectations about the product, and they can change quickly on later days as analysts publish their views.

Key details

At launch the chatbot was powered by ERNIE 3.0. It remained invitation-only for about three months, until the ERNIE 3.5 upgrade in June 2023.^[4]

Baidu's share price moved sharply in both directions. Its Hong Kong shares fell as much as 10% and closed down 6.4% after the launch.^[3][1] The next day the stock rose 14% after analysts at Citigroup and Bank of America gave positive preliminary reviews.^[2]

Baidu later dated ERNIE Bot's debut to 16 March 2023, when it announced in April 2024 that the product had 200 million users.^[5]

Impact

The chatbot's next steps were the ERNIE 3.5 upgrade in June 2023 and the public opening in August of the same year.^[4][3]