Baidu Inc, China’s largest search engine company, is planning to launch an AI chatbot service in March, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The AI chatbot will be embedded into Baidu’s primary search services and will provide users with conversation-style search results. The standalone application will gradually merge into the search engine. Baidu’s Ernie system, a large-scale machine-learning model, will be the foundation for the chatbot.
The chatbot service will allow users to receive conversation-style search results, similar to the popular platform of OpenAI. Baidu plans to launch the service as a standalone application and gradually merge it into its search engine, as per an anonymous source. The company’s Ernie system, a large-scale machine-learning model trained on data over several years, will be the foundation of its upcoming ChatGPT-like tool.
Chatbots use predefined conversation flows or AI to answer questions and guide customers through different scenarios, such as login issues, payment problems, or booking instructions. AI bots can also learn from each interaction and adjust their actions to provide better support. However, chatbots work best with straightforward, frequently-asked questions and may struggle with difficult, multi-part questions.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has received a lot of attention since its public debut in November, gaining more than a million users within days and sparking a debate about the role of AI in various settings. OpenAI is among the many companies and academic labs working to build more advanced chatbots, which can retrieve and repackage information with a speed that humans cannot achieve. They can be thought of as digital assistants, such as Siri or Alexa, that are better at understanding what the user is looking for and providing it.
Baidu, along with other internet giants Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings, and ByteDance, control much of China’s internet. Baidu has been trying to revive growth in the mobile era and is also investing in autonomous driving technology, as well as AI.
ChatGPT has also garnered interest from Chinese internet users, despite a heavily censored domestic internet largely walled off from the rest of the world. Chatbots have the potential to reinvent or even replace traditional internet search engines like Google and Bing, as they can serve up information in tight sentences, rather than long lists of blue links. They can explain concepts in a way that people can understand, and they can deliver facts, as well as generate business plans, term paper topics, and other new ideas from scratch.
Several Chinese start-ups are also exploring generative AI and have attracted investors such as Sequoia and Sinovation Ventures. The launch of ChatGPT has sparked a trend in the development of chatbots, and Baidu’s new chatbot service is a testament to the potential of this technology.
In an effort to transition from online marketing to deep technology, Baidu has spent billions of dollars on AI research over the years. The company’s expertise in artificial intelligence and search engine technology makes it well positioned to launch a successful chatbot service.
Finally, Baidu’s upcoming chatbot service will provide users with a new and innovative way to search for information and receive support. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, the chatbot can provide fast and customized responses as well as collect customer information through chat forms. Baidu’s expertise in artificial intelligence and search engine technology, combined with the growing trend of chatbots, positions the company well to launch a successful chatbot service.
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