HONG KONG -- Baidu announced on Thursday that the latest version of its Ernie AI chatbot will be free for all users starting April 1, as the Chinese search giant faces mounting pressure from rivals, including a collaboration between Alibaba and Apple to put AI on Chinese iPhones.
Users will have free access to all of Ernie's advanced features, including extended document processing and advanced AI painting, as well as a new function called Deep Search featuring enhanced thinking and reasoning capabilities, the company said. Its shares in Hong Kong rose 10% at one point on Thursday on the news
