Baidu’s Ernie Faces Tough Competition in the ChatGPT Race

It’s clear that no one anticipated the emergence of ChatGPT. Prior to becoming arguably the most successful consumer app ever, ChatGPT was introduced in November 2019 as a “research preview.” This propelled “generative pre-trained transformers” into everyday speech and created competition amongst companies to embrace the revolutionary model.

As we find ourselves amid a technological revolution, AI has taken center stage in virtually every conversation. Fierce competition is currently taking place among the world’s biggest tech companies to offer the most advanced and sophisticated versions of AI chatbots, with Google providing its own version dubbed ‘Bard,’ Microsoft implementing OpenAI ChatGPT into Bing, and Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, introducing its own chatbot ‘Ernie.’

Baidu cancels Ernie public event to meet high demand from companies testing its ChatGPT rival

Baidu has canceled a public live-stream event promoting their ChatGPT competitor, Ernie.

On Monday, Baidu stated that they had decided to abolish their intended presentation, open to both media and the public, in favor of a private gathering with enterprises experimenting with their AI-based bot.

Baidu, China’s largest search engine provider, stated that the “high demand” from 120,000 companies that have signed up to trial Ernie had altered the event format to serve them better.

Earlier this month, Baidu launched Ernie to an unenthusiastic reception. It joined many companies that have released competitors to OpenAI’s incredibly popular ChatGPT.

Following a pre-recorded demonstration by Baidu’s Chief Executive Robin Li on March 16, the company’s shares dropped as the showcased Ernie AI model lacked the features the Chat GPT’s follow-up GPT-4 could provide, such as the capability to generate text from a given image.

The company’s stock then rose sharply as customers voiced their views about the platform on the internet.

Analysts in the tech industry state that the government has impeded efforts by China to copy the same success of Chat GPT in Beijing’s stringent regulations concerning the web, the resource chatbots depend on to recreate the human conversation. Despite this, domestic versions like Ernie might still succeed in the Chinese market.

The Chinese government has committed to increasing its backing for advancing Artificial Intelligence. The nation’s foremost tech companies, including Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent, have started developing their own varieties of tech. The race to develop the most advanced and sophisticated AI chatbot is on. As technology evolves, we can only imagine what the future holds.