BEIJING — A series of messages released last week illustrate how Chinese companies Deep search and ByteDance is making rapid progress in artificial intelligence models Competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Now, many companies in China are increasingly building on this foundation to develop products beyond chatbots.

Baiduknown for its search engine Ernie chatbotOn Tuesday, the company said its AI-integrated library platform for quickly creating slideshows and other documents had reached 40 million paid users, with revenue up 60% year over year as of the end of last year. Newer features, such as using artificial intelligence to generate presentations based on a company’s financial statements, began rolling out to users last week.

On the enterprise side, analyst Ben Yan, director of data and analytics at Gartner, estimates that more than 10% of enterprises in China are using artificial intelligence, up from 8% six months ago. He said on Wednesday it would be an accelerated pace – the recent 2 percentage points increase in adoption took more than a year.

“Through our customers, we are hearing more and more success stories,” he said in Mandarin as translated by CNBC. Yan noted that so-called artificial intelligence agents will help speed up companies’ implementation of new technologies.

While AI models focus on specific functions, such as searching and generating snippets, AI agents are more advanced – they can automate the entire process from search to booking. An example is OpenAI’s new “operator” feature Claims to be able to make restaurant reservations on behalf of ChatGPT users.

Artificial intelligence agents are also about to enter the Chinese market on a large scale.

Tencent CEO Ma Huateng told employees in a speech on January 13 that it plans to soon integrate an artificial intelligence agent with its messaging and social media app WeChat, according to a copy of the annual speech seen by CNBC.

“We believe China’s AI industry is developing at a pace comparable to the U.S.,” Jo Huang, head of private equity at Raffles Family Office, said in an email. She said the firm was considering investing in a leading Chinese AI deep tech fund. , to seize local opportunities.

The development of artificial intelligence applications in China has created functions that can be integrated with domestic smartphones. Apple’s AI smart features have not yet landed in the hands of Chinese iPhone users.

“Users’ preference for local brands is also changing, and these brands can Deliver advanced AI capabilities tailored to regional consumer preferences“, Wei Sun, chief artificial intelligence analyst at Counterpoint Research, said in an email on Thursday.

She noted that Chinese smartphone companies such as Honor, Xiaomi, and Vivo have been able to improve the user experience of AI features, thanks to efforts to make AI models more efficient that can run on the device without relying heavily on an internet connection. cloud. Serve.

Baidu’s Ernie bot similar to ChatGPT Public approval from Beijing was not obtained until August 2023It’s been nearly a year since ChatGPT took the world by storm.

Alex Lu, founder of LSY Consulting in Shanghai, said that while AI models must obtain official certification to be used in China, it is much easier to use them in applications. On the other hand, he is working with a small team to develop artificial intelligence tools that provide companies with daily targeted insights on industry trends and global regulations, similar to the work of human consultants.

Lu said that half a year after development began in June 2023, the team began testing the product for free with potential customers, including a car battery manufacturer. Lu said this provides feedback for a product the team hopes to charge an annual licensing fee of 70,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan ($9,660 to $13,790).

But the bigger challenge may be getting companies to allow AI access to proprietary data, or to use AI-generated content for commercial purposes.

Chris Reitermann, CEO of Ogilvy Asia Pacific and Greater China, told CNBC late last year: “I think (multinational companies) are much more cautious than Chinese brands because of copyright and legal issues.” He is also the president of WPP China.

He said clients have tried to use AI for campaigns but have run into compliance issues that have prevented projects from getting off the ground. “Local brands may worry less about these issues and do more trial and error,” he said.

Some self-developed artificial intelligence applications in China are also being used overseas. AlibabaEarlier this month, its international division announced that its artificial intelligence product procurement search engine Accio has The number of small business users reached 500,000.

Accio launches in November Let businesses find wholesale products using some text or image prompts and provide them with analytics on how popular these products are with consumers and projected profits.

Mike McClary, who was introduced to Accio early on and has been selling camping lights and other products online for more than 10 years, said Accio cut research time from weeks to about a day. McClary, CEO of Amazing.com, which claims e-commerce sales exceed $1 million a year and is headquartered outside St. Louis, Missouri.

He said that Alibaba and Amazon, which he previously used, required looking at hundreds or thousands of results and then individually negotiating with five to 10 suppliers before settling on one. McClary said the “next game changer” will be the use of artificial intelligence to place product images into any scene to create ads.