Baidu's subsidiary launches upgraded multimodal AI assistant

Xiaodu Technology, a subsidiary of Chinese tech heavyweight Baidu Inc, unveiled on Thursday its upgraded multimodal artificial intelligence assistant called Chaoneng Xiaodu, with its rollout across all product lines, including glasses, smart cameras, and smart speakers.

Built on an AI-native operating system, the assistant is no longer just able to listen and speak. It boasts enhanced visual understanding and reasoning capabilities, improving human-computer interaction experience, the company said.

By integrating audio, visual, and spatial environmental information, it can comprehensively perceive and interpret the real world, and its response speed has also been significantly improved.

Through multimodal perceptual interaction, including text, voice, images, video, and gestures, the AI assistant has achieved advancements in holistic understanding, proactive intelligence, personalized memory and application, enabling it to become a companion capable of active thinking.

Li Ying, CEO of Xiaodu Technology, said in the AI era, all hardware devices will inevitably be reshaped by AI, adding that currently, the AI assistant has been fully deployed in a wide range of industries such as smart hotels, elderly care, smart home appliances, intelligent vehicles and AI toys.