BEIJING: Baidu on Thursday unveiled its much-anticipated artificial intelligence-powered chatbot known as Ernie Bot, with its CEO saying that it was the culmination of the firm’s years of hard work in artificial intelligence.

The bot was not perfect but they were releasing it now because of market demand, Robin Li said at a media conference in Beijing.

The popularity of ChatGPT, backed by Microsoft, has triggered a frenzied rush among Chinese tech giants and startups alike to develop a rival.

China’s Baidu says 2022 revenue fell 1%, flags ‘Ernie’ chatbot

Baidu jumped to the forefront of the race after saying early last month it was close to completing a chatbot using its AI-driven deep learning model, Ernie - short for “Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration”.