Baidu will offer its artificial intelligence assistant ERNIE Bot for free starting April 1.
Due to the rapid user adoption by competitors like DeepSeek, Baidu has decided to remove the paywall for its artificial intelligence assistant, ERNIE Bot.
Baidu has announced that starting April 1, its AI chatbot, ERNIE Bot, will be accessible for free to all users. This measure is due to cost reductions and technological improvements that allow the service to be offered at no charge. Additionally, the company has indicated that in certain cases, refunds will be issued to users.
On the same day, Baidu will also unveil an enhanced search function, which will be free and will feature advanced reasoning capabilities. This launch comes at a time when the company had begun offering premium features in its search engine at the end of 2023, which were powered by AI models like ERNIE 4.0. These premium features had an approximate monthly cost of $8.
Despite being one of the pioneers in launching an AI chatbot in China, ERNIE has faced challenges regarding its market acceptance. In contrast, local competitors such as ByteDance's Doubao chatbot and DeepSeek, which offers its AI assistant for free, have seen stronger adoption among users, according to third-party data tracking reports.