Baidu's 99% Discount AI

More powerful AI coming from China…

In this edition we’ll be covering…

• The new ERNIE models from Baidu

• A tutorial on how to use new image editing features in Gemini

• A tutorial on how to conduct competitor analysis with OpenAI Deep Research

• 5 more AI trends

• 3 AI tools to dive into

• And much more…

The Latest in AI

Baidu’s One-Two Punch to AI Pricing

Chinese companies are nowhere near finished making bold moves.

Baidu is stepping up its AI game with the release of ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1 (apparently ahead of schedule), two models designed to compete with OpenAI, DeepSeek, and Google—but at a fraction of the cost.

Oh, and the ERNIE Bot chat interface is now free for everyone.

What’s Baidu cooking?

• ERNIE 4.5 – A multimodal AI model that can handle text, images, audio, and video. It competes with GPT-4o and DeepSeek V3, excelling in reasoning, coding, and content generation.

• The model also outperforms GPT-4.5 in multiple benchmarks while priced at just 1% of GPT-4.5 (approximately $0.55 and $2.20 per million input/output tokens).

• ERNIE X1 – A reasoning-focused model built for finance, law, and data analysis. Baidu claims it matches DeepSeek-R1 at half the cost (!)

So What?

China’s AI race is heating up. Baidu’s ERNIE models are literally DISRUPTING instead of just competing. ERNIE 4.5 is already beating GPT-4o/GPT-4.5 in multimodal benchmarks, but language barriers and accessibility issues may slow its global adoption.

Meanwhile, ERNIE X1 is a direct challenge to DeepSeek, and if Baidu’s performance claims hold up, it could force a major price war in the AI space.

Are Baidu’s models ready for primetime?

Together with Artisan

Automate Prospecting Local Businesses With Our AI BDR

Struggling to identify local prospects? Our AI BDR Ava taps into a database of 200M+ local Google businesses and does fully autonomous outreach—so you can focus on closing deals, not chasing leads.

Ava operates within the Artisan platform, which consolidates every tool you need for outbound:

• 300M+ High-Quality B2B Prospects

• Automated Lead Enrichment With 10+ Data Sources Included

• Full Email Deliverability Management

• Personalization Waterfall using LinkedIn, Twitter, Web Scraping & More

Book a demo and supercharge your sales team

Get Your Hands Dirty!

Visual Magic with Google Gemini

Google made Gemini 2.0 Flash (Experimental) available for developers, bringing multimodal AI capabilities directly into Google AI Studio and the Gemini API.

Now, you can generate and edit images using natural language—think Photoshop, but all in a single model.

Where the outputs shine…

• Text + Images Together

• Conversational Image Editing

• World Understanding

• Text Rendering

How to Try It Yourself:

1. Log in to Google AI Studio

2. Select the model dropdown (on the right) and switch to Gemini 2.0 Flash (Image Generation) Experimental

3. Upload an image to edit or start fresh with a text-based prompt

This experimental feature brings fast, lightweight image generation to Google’s AI ecosystem.

Test it out and see how far your AI-powered visuals can go!

Tool Spotlight

Using OpenAI Deep Research To Spy on Competitors

OpenAI has (finally) made Deep Research available to Plus-tier ChatGPT subscribers, bringing autonomous web browsing and in-depth report generation to more users.

Now, you can quickly gather competitive insights without manually sifting through endless search results.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Navigate to ChatGPT

2. Toggle on Deep Research under the message box

3. Use this prompt:

Conduct a comprehensive analysis of the current market landscape for [INDUSTRY], focusing on major competitors, market share, and recent technological advancements.

Quick Bites

Stay updated with our favorite highlights, dive in for a full flavor of the coverage!

Instagram is now experimenting with AI-generated comments on posts, so you don’t even have to come up with an opinion, or an original thought of your own, in order to respond to an update.

Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s Chief Product Officer, forecasts that artificial intelligence will outperform human programmers in competitive coding by the end of this year.

Intel’s incoming CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, aims to revitalize the company by restructuring its manufacturing processes and enhancing its AI strategies.

Matthew Berman explains the viral MCP for AI agents and how to use it.

Y-Combinator reports that its current cohort of startups is experiencing unprecedented growth, largely attributed to advancements in AI.

Trending Tools

🤖 Zep - The memory foundation for your AI stack.

🦜 LangGraph - Low-level orchestration framework for building controllable agents.

📈 SQLFlash - Optimize SQL instantly with AI, eliminating manual tuning.

The Neural Network

OpenAI’s o1 just speedran a Carnegie Mellon math exam, solving each problem in under a minute—and for just 5 cents a question.

Meanwhile, the best human student took 30 minutes per problem…

Until we Type Again…

Thank you for reading yet another edition of Digestible AI!

If you have any suggestions or specific feedback, simply reply to this email. Additionally, if you found this insightful, don't hesitate to engage with us on our socials and forward this over to your friends!