Baidu’s Chinese AI bot Ernie Bot will be free to use from April 1

Chinese tech giant Baidu announced on WeChat that it will make its chatbot Ernie Bot free for desktop and mobile users from April 1, Reuters reports. The company says it has made the move thanks to improved technology and lower service costs.

Image Source: Baidu/prnewswire.com

As the news agency noted, Baidu is facing growing competition in China’s AI market, particularly from startup DeepSeek, which offers free access to its AI Assistant chatbot and the ability to work with AI models that the startup says are comparable in performance to advanced AI systems from US-based OpenAI at lower operating costs.

Baidu was one of the first Chinese AI developers to announce a large language model called Ernie after the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot in 2022, but has yet to make much progress in distributing it. Baidu claims its latest version, Ernie 4.0, is as capable as OpenAI’s GPT-4.

However, Baidu’s AI offerings lag behind domestic competitors such as ByteDance’s Doubao chatbot and DeepSeek’s chatbot, according to Aicpb.com, a website that tracks user visits to online AI services.

Baidu also announced the launch of an advanced search feature, which will also be available for free on April 1. The feature offers advanced reasoning capabilities and integration of tools to provide expert-level answers, the company said.