Baidu reportedly mulls launching ChatGPT-style bot

China’s largest search engine company Baidu is reportedly planning to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot service that is similar to OpenAI’s popular platform ChatGPT, according to Bloomberg. 

Debuting in March, the application will be initially embedded it into its main search services, according to the report. The tool will allow users to conversation-style search results just as ChatGPT.A check by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE saw on Weibo that netizens are curious about ChatGPT's functions as China has a censored domestic internet. Some asked if combining ChatGPT into web search engine Bing can allow them to use it in mainland China.

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According to the report, Baidu has spent billions of dollars researching AI for years to transition from online marketing to deeper technology. Its Ernie system, which is a large-scale machine-learning model that’s been trained on data for past years, will be the foundation of its upcoming ChatGPT-style tool.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Baidu for a statement.

ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can generate human-like text in response to simple keywords put in by users, has been causing quite the stir since its launch in November last year. With an almost non-existent marketing plan, the model hit one million users in less than five days of its launch, according to a tweet by OpenAI's co-founder Sam Altman. It has also attracted the attention of tech company Microsoft who reportedly plans to invest US$10 billion into OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, according to Semafor.

Today, the model continues to be talked about extensively by educators, marketers, technologists, journalists and writers who are all excitedly testing the platform’s almost human-like ability to produce well-researched content in seconds, and contemplate what it will mean for the future of many writing-based roles and for the people who rely on them.

On the other hand, Industry players MARKETING-INTERACTIVE spoke to said that while marketers are looking to experiment and play around with the technology, at this stage, not many are actually thinking of it being a revolutionary factor for their jobs.

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