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Baidu’s Duer will be able to respond to voice queries order food and give recommendations and advice about pets. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images
Baidu’s Duer will be able to respond to voice queries order food and give recommendations and advice about pets. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

Baidu launches Duer digital assistant to take on Siri, Cortana and Google Now

This article is more than 8 years old

Chinese search company challenges Google, Apple and Facebook with artificial intelligence voice search capable of ordering food and giving pet advice

Chinese technology company Baidu, often labelled as China’s Google has launched a digital assistant to take on rivals from Apple, Microsoft and Google.

Unveiled at the company’s Baidu World conference in Beijing on Tuesday, the new Siri-like virtual assistant called “Duer”, which roughly translates to “Du Secretary”, is built into the Baidu Android search app installed on millions of smartphones across China.

Baidu has pioneered artificial intelligence research, rivalling US tech companies including Google, Apple and Facebook, and is the only company of its scale to operate within the space from outside the US.

Duer will allow users in Chinese users to order food and access other services via the app, while the company is planning to make the voice control system part of its internet of things push. Baidu is working on a system to allow Duer to control devices in the home and allow them to connect to healthcare and other service providers.

The virtual assistant will follow a similar path to Google’s Now and voice search, becoming integrated into Baidu’s other apps including Maps and Nuomi, a group buying service.

Baidu showed off AI capable of recognising images more reliably than humans and better than both Microsoft and Google’s technology.

The company also recently announced plans to release a self-driving car with automotive manufacturer BMW by the end of the year, based on its AI, machine learning and mapping technologies.

The Chinese company has rapidly become a real challenge to the American technology companies, seizing on their absence from the world’s largest consumer electronics market.

Google is expected to re-enter China in the near future with a limited version of its Play Store and version of Android, which dominates the western smartphone market.

But the company will have to overcome Baidu and incumbent Chinese players including Xiaomi, which have flooded the market with customised versions of Android with their own app stores and services.

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