By Jiahui Huang

Baidu's AI assistant has surpassed 200 million monthly active users, according to people familiar with the matter, as competition intensifies among Chinese tech giants in the AI field.

The company's artificial intelligence-empowered Ernie Assistant is integrated into its flagship Baidu search-engine app and on personal computers.

Ernie Assistant is linked to widely used apps such as JD.com, Meituan and Trip.com, which allows the agent to help book flight tickets, order food delivery, and search for health and legal advice, among others.

Users can ask Ernie Assistant to generate videos and images, and write summaries, among other tasks. Users of the AI assistant have the option to choose different AI models, including DeepSeek or Baidu's own Ernie model. The AI assistant is also linked with the company's Baidu Map and Baidu Health platforms.

ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent and other tech companies in China have been investing heavily on AI models and applications.

Last week, Alibaba said it is connecting its Qwen chatbot into its vast consumer ecosystem and allowing it to carry out tasks on users' behalf. The Qwen app surpassed 100 million monthly active users within two months of its November launch, Alibaba said.

Chinese tech giant ByteDance rolled out its first AI-integrated phone in partnership with smartphone maker ZTE in December.

Baidu was the first major Chinese tech company to launch a ChatGPT-like chatbot dubbed Ernie Bot in 2023, but has since faced stiff competition in China from DeepSeek and Bytedance's Doubao.

Write to Jiahui Huang at jiahui.huang@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 20, 2026 01:31 ET (06:31 GMT)

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