Baidu
Inc.
is planning to roll out an artificial intelligence
chatbot
service
similar to
OpenAI
’s
ChatGPT
,
according to a person familiar with the matter, potentially China’s
most prominent entry in a race touched off by the tech
phenomenon.
China’s
largest search engine company plans to debut a ChatGPT-style
application in March, initially embedding it into its main search
services, said the person, asking to remain unidentified discussing
private information. The tool, whose name hasn’t been decided, will
allow users to get conversation-style search results much like
OpenAI’s popular platform.
The
company’s shares rose as much as 5.8% after Bloomberg’s report,
the largest intraday gain in almost four weeks.
Baidu
has spent billions of dollars researching AI in a years-long effort
to transition from online marketing to deeper technology. Its Ernie
system — a large-scale machine-learning model that’s been trained
on data over several years — will be the foundation of its upcoming
ChatGPT-like tool, the person said. A Baidu representative declined
to comment.
ChatGPT,
OpenAI’s artificial intelligence tool, has lit up the internet
since its public debut in November, amassing more than a million
users within days and touching off a debate about the role of AI in
schools, offices and homes. Companies including Microsoft Corp. are
investing billions to try and develop real-world applications, while
others are capitalizing on the hype to raise funds. Buzzfeed Inc.’s
shares more than doubled this month after it announced plans to
incorporate ChatGPT in its content.
Baidu,
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd.
control much of China’s internet. The search company has been
trying to revive growth in the mobile era, after increasingly lagging
its larger rivals in arenas such as mobile advertising, video and
social media. Apart from research in AI, the search giant is now also
developing autonomous driving technology.
Baidu Chief Executive Officer Robin Li raised ChatGPT as an example of where the tech giant can take the lead during an internal talk in December, according to a transcript viewed by Bloomberg News.
ChatGPT
also piqued the interest of Chinese internet users, who like people
elsewhere shared screenshots of surprising conversations with the AI
bot on local social media. That’s despite a heavily censored
domestic internet largely walled off from the rest of the world, a
model that’s helped companies like Baidu thrive as local
equivalents to Google, Amazon and Facebook.
Apart
from Baidu, several Chinese startups are also exploring generative
AI, and have attracted investors such as Sequoia and Sinovation
Ventures.