According to SCMP , Baidu CEO Robin Li Yanhong said that Ernie Bot is capable of understanding complex questions, generating images and processing calculations.

Li said Baidu’s chatbot has improved significantly in its ability to understand, reason, recall, and remember. Ernie Bot can create car ads in minutes, solve complex math problems, and create the plot of a martial arts novel. Although it operates primarily in Chinese, the chatbot can handle queries and respond in English.

The lack of official releases of ChatGPT and Bard AI in China has left the AI ​​race here without foreign companies. In 2023, Chinese companies launched more than 100 large language models (LLMs). Chinese tech giants such as Baidu, Alibaba, Vivo, and Oppo are taking advantage of the opportunity to push their own AI products. To avoid falling into the regulatory spotlight, these chatbots are all designed to avoid sensitive questions. The Chinese government has proposed using a blacklist system to block data used to train LLMs, of which more than 5% contain illegal content.

When asked about sensitive topics, Ernie Bot will end the conversation by suggesting another topic of conversation, the Baidu CEO said.

In June, Baidu claimed that Ernie Bot 3.5 “beat” OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 in a number of tests, specifically on questions and topics in Chinese. Baidu first announced a beta version of Ernie in March, and then officially launched it to the public in August after receiving approval from the Chinese government. Baidu CTO Wang Haifeng revealed that Ernie Bot is currently used by 45 million users and 54,000 developers.