(JW Insights) Feb 21 -- Jidu Auto (集度汽车), a joint venture of Chinese tech giant Baidu and carmaker Geely Holding Group, will use Baidu's self-developed ChatGPT-like bot in its smart cars, making it the first to provide an interactive experience with an AI in such vehicles, reported Yicai Global on February 15.

Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu, said at a press conference in Beijing on February 14 that Jidu Auto's automotive robots will integrate all of Ernie Bot's capabilities into the vehicles, creating the world's first large-model AI interactive experience for smart cars.

Using ChatGPT-like tech can improve human-vehicle interaction and enable the in-car voice to mimic human-like responses, Xia told Yicai Global, adding that the specific features will be clarified after the product's launch.

Baidu's Ernie Bot, unveiled to the world earlier this month, is likely to be available in March after the completion of its closed beta testing. It is intended to rival the increasingly popular ChatGPT, or Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, released by US AI startup OpenAI last November.

Founded in March 2021, Jidu Auto unveiled its first production car, the Robo-01, at the Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition in December, with deliveries expected to begin this year.

Jidu Auto's first brick-and-mortar Roboverse store, which integrates metaverse technology, opened in Beijing on February 14. On the same day, the company inked a deal with Three-Body Universe Shanghai Cultural Development, which owns the rights to the science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem, to launch 'three-body' branded vehicles this year, said the Yicai Global report.

(Chen HX)