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Monday, February 23, 2026
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Baidu is Revolutionizing the China AI Market with Ernie Chatbot

Baidu Inc., one of China’s biggest search and artificial intelligence firms, said on Wednesday that they plan to implement their artificial intelligence chatbot ‘Ernie’ into its search engine from March.

Baidu, which is known for its search engine and autonomous driving technology, leads China’s efforts to create an equivalent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. It said earlier this month that it will complete internal testing of Ernie Bot in March before making the service public.

In an internal memo, Baidu CEO Robin Li said that Ernie Bot will be integrated across all of Baidu’s operations, including its search and cloud services. Baidu also plans to integrate Ernie into its smart car operating system and smart speaker.

The company’s stock price in New York jumped nearly 7% in pre-market trading Wednesday to more than $150 a share.

“AI technology has reached a tipping point and all industries will inevitably go through transformation, Baidu stands as the best example of the long-term growth of China’s AI market and is advancing at the forefront of this new wave.”

The company also announced a $5 billion share buyback on Wednesday.

Baidu reported revenues of 33.1 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) for the quarter that ended in December, about lev`l with the same period of 2021.

“Baidu is the latest high-profile business to embrace the transformative power of conversational AI. Most well-known for its search engine, Baidu has clearly shown its intent to put search at the heart of its customer service, with plans to have its Ernie Bot integrated across its ecosystem of services, from better search capabilities to improving its smart vehicle voice assistant.” Comments Sanjeev Kumar, VP EMEA at Boost.ai, “In the last few weeks, we have seen a groundswell of interest and enthusiasm for AI-powered chatbots and voicebots, as ChatGPT raised the profile of this technology in the minds of everyday people. Now, we’re seeing big-name players mobilise to build their own offerings, as the public imagination remains captured by the ergonomic interface that conversational AI offers. However, you don’t have to be a multi-billion-pound company to transform your customer experience with conversational AI. Now is the time for businesses of all shapes and sizes to seize the initiative and place conversational AI at the heart of their customer service offerings as well, as customers become more familiarised with chatbots and voicebots, and expectations increase for a better customer experience. With the right expertise and strategy in place, virtual agents are a highly effective tool that businesses cannot ignore.”

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