Baidu says its ChatGPT rival Ernie bot now has greater than 100 million customers

BEIJING — Chinese language tech firm Baidu mentioned Thursday its ChatGPT-like synthetic intelligence product, Ernie bot, has surpassed 100 million customers.

Baidu shares closed 3% greater in U.S. buying and selling, preserving the inventory mildly greater for 2023. The corporate didn’t specify whether or not the Ernie bot consumer numbers had been lively or for a particular time interval.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI mentioned in November that ChatGPT had about 100 million weekly lively customers. The chatbot is not formally out there in China, however can be utilized within the Chinese language language.

Ernie bot, which can be utilized in English along with its main language of Chinese language, requires a China cellular quantity for consumer registration. The app is named “Wenxinyiyan” in Mandarin Chinese language.

Baidu launched its chatbot in March however did not get regulatory approval for mass rollout till late August, when a number of native gamers additionally obtained the inexperienced mild.

TikTok mum or dad ByteDance affords a chatbot known as Doubao, which ranked second within the free-to-use productiveness class in Apple’s app retailer in China as of Friday morning.

Tencent and Alibaba have targeted extra on AI merchandise for enterprise companions, however each provide chatbots to the general public in China. Tencent’s sits inside its extensively used WeChat messaging and social media app.

In November, Baidu began charging about $8 a month for its most superior model of Ernie bot. ChatGPT expenses $20 a month to make use of its newest out there mannequin.

— CNBC’s Hayden Area contributed to this report.