A decade ago Baidu, which operates China's largest search engine , was at the centre of the country's Internet. Together with Alibaba and Tencent, China's two most valuable internet businesses, it formed a triumvirate known as "BAT". With foreign search engines banned or heavily censored in China, it faced little competition. Baidu never lost its dominance of that business; it still enjoys upwards of 90% of China's search traffic. Yet shifts in the tech landscape have left the company a shadow of its former self.

Most Chinese internet users now access the web through super-apps such as Tencent's WeChat. Advertising dollars have shifted to the likes of Douyin, the Chinese cousin of TikTok. Meituan, a delivery platform, and Pinduoduo, an e-commerce firm, have surged past Baidu's valuation of $50bn. In an effort at emulation , it launched its own delivery and shopping solutions, along with other services such as payments and social media. These mostly flopped . The company's market capitalisation is now equivalent to one-eighth of Tencent's, down from one-fifth five years ago.

Baidu's rollout of AI, however, is reigniting excitement about the company. Ernie was downloaded 1m times within 19 hours of its release (ChatGPT reached 1m downloads after five days, according to its maker, OpenAI). Baidu's shares rallied by more than 4% on the day of release, as analysts, investors and common folk bombarded the bot with questions.