Jobaaj Stories
Chinese tech giant Baidu has announced that its AI chatbot, Ernie Bot, will be available for free starting April 1. The company said advancements in technology and lower costs allowed them to make this decision.
According to a WeChat post by Baidu, reported by Reuters, Ernie Bot will be free on both desktop and mobile platforms. This move comes as competition in China’s AI industry heats up, especially with DeepSeek, another AI chatbot that already offers free access and performs similarly to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Baidu was one of the first companies in China to launch an AI chatbot after ChatGPT's debut in 2022, but its Ernie AI model has struggled to gain as many users as competitors like ByteDance’s Doubao and DeepSeek. The latest version, Ernie 4.0, is said to be as powerful as OpenAI’s GPT-4, but reports suggest its adoption has been slow.
Previously, Baidu charged 59.9 yuan ($8.18) per month for premium AI-powered search features. Along with making Ernie Bot free, Baidu also announced a new advanced search function, which will launch on April 1 and offer better reasoning and expert-level responses.
China’s AI sector is growing rapidly, with major companies like Alibaba and Tencent using AI for e-commerce, cloud computing, healthcare, and more. Baidu’s decision to make Ernie Bot free is seen as a way to stay competitive in this fast-changing market.
