Best known for its Alexa-style smart speaker, Baidu’s Xiaodu unit plans to launch a smartphone next week. Xiaodu will launch the smart phone at the company’s headquarters in Beijing. As Xiaodu faces a shrinking handset market at home, the company aims to enhance its ecosystem of hardware devices. Without breaking down sales from sales from Xiaodu in its financial report, Baidu relies on advertising for more than half of its revenues. An AI-powered chatbot, Ernie, was launched by Baidu in March of this year. A race has been spurred among Chinese tech firms and startups by the success of Microsoft-backed … Continue reading From Ernie Bot to Smartphones: Baidu’s Latest Moves to Expand Its AI Ecosystem