Shares in Chinese tech company Baidu (BIDU) continued to soar today after it said it will offer its AI chatbot for free to all users from the beginning of April.
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According to reports, the company said in a WeChat post today that its ‘ERNIE Bot’ service will be accessible at no charge to people on desktop and mobile platforms from April 1. Baidu said it was able to offer ERNIE up for free because of “inference cost reductions.” The company also announced that a new “Deep Search” function, with “enhanced capabilities in thinking, planning, and tool calling,” will also be released for free on April 1.
Baidu Making AI Moves
ERNIE was first released back in March 2023, with Baidu claiming that it was comparable to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which was launched in 2022. It has around 430 million users, according to its own data. It comes only 24 hours after Baidu announced the launch of its advanced generative AI model ERNIE 5.0 in the second half of 2025. It is understood that it will be a foundation model and have multimodal capabilities such as the ability to communicate in natural language. It may also be able to process text, audio, video, and images to produce results.
AI Competition Heats Up
Baidu’s moves come as it faces increasing competition in the AI marketplace, not just from U.S. rivals such as Nvidia (NVDA), but at home from Alibaba (BABA), ByteDance and the new kid on the block, startup DeepSeek, which is already offering free AI chatbot services. Adding to Baidu’s woes, it was reported earlier this week that Apple (AAPL) had moved on from it as a potential AI partner in China and towards rival Alibaba. Baidu shares were up 5% in early trading, with rivals BABA flat and Nvidia up over 2%.
Is BIDU a Good Stock to Buy?
On TipRanks, BIDU has a Moderate Buy consensus based on 9 Buy and 6 Hold ratings. Its highest price target is $144.60. BIDU stock’s consensus price target is $106.71 implying an 9.22% upside.
