Chinese technology giant Baidu had been getting lots of attention earlier this month when it introduced its AI-powered chatbot, Ernie Bot, which would enable businesses to automate mundane tasks. Unfortunately, the company has announced that it has cancelled the product’s public launch which had been scheduled for Monday (March 27).
It appears that the company had been overwhelmed by the “strong demand” from 120,000 companies that had applied to test out the bot, leaving it no choice but to move to a closed-door meeting with its first batch of testers. The recordings that were released before showed the AI-chatbot performing tasks such as summarizing financial statements, creating powerpoint presentations, constructing travel itineraries, and virtual streaming advertisements. From what has been reported, it looks like the chatbot has a much wider range of skills than had previously been revealed.
Baidu, founded in 2000, is a Beijing-based company that provides internet-related services and products, artificial intelligence and other technology-related products. The company is led by its founder and chairman, Robin Li. He introduced Ernie Bot on March 16, 2020 with a demo that showcased the bot’s industry-focused capabilities. Despite this cancellation, Ernie Bot will remain a significant advancement in AI-processed chatbots and its capabilities for the technology industry. It joins a thriving AI-driven market that has seen a surge since ChatGPT was released in November last year. Microsoft invested billions into OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, and released the Bing search engine with AI capability. Google has followed suit and opened a limited preview of its AI chatbot Bard, which is capitalizing on the large language model LaMDA.
