Deepseek Accelerates AI Industry Competition, with OpenAI and Baidu Joining the Free Offering Trend

Recently, the term "Deepseek" has become a hot topic in the tech world, appearing in almost every piece of news or research report. This phenomenon has caused many AI large model companies to become anxious, particularly those relying on traditional AI technologies, as this emerging technology challenges the existing technological landscape and market share.

OpenAI will abandon o3 and directly launch GPT-4.5

On February 13, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that the company is in the final stages of developing a new AI model called GPT-4.5, and plans to release GPT-5 in the coming months. This announcement means that OpenAI has decided to cancel the release of the o3 model.

According to a post by Altman on X, OpenAI plans to unify its models and product features, simplifying the user experience. Previously, users who wanted to force ChatGPT to use a specific model (like o3-mini) had to click the "Reason" button in the prompt bar or manually select the model from the model selector after the chatbot answered. However, in the future, OpenAI plans to streamline this process, allowing users to easily choose and use different models.

It’s important to note that GPT-4.5 (Orion) will be OpenAI's last non-chain-of-thought model. Although Orion encountered several performance challenges and technical issues during its development, it still generated market anticipation. According to multiple media outlets, although Orion shows some improvements over GPT-4, its progress is relatively modest, and it doesn't present a significant breakthrough compared to GPT-4.

On the other hand, GPT-5 will integrate OpenAI's technologies, including the o3 model, which will no longer be released separately. After the unification, OpenAI plans to make GPT-5 available to free users, meaning a broader audience will have access to its more powerful and comprehensive capabilities.

Baidu has also announced that it will make its AI LLM available for free

In addition to OpenAI's developments, a major AI player in China has also announced important updates. On February 13, Baidu announced that its AI language model, ERNIE Bot, will be fully free starting at midnight on April 1. This means that users on both PC and mobile app platforms will be able to access the latest models in the ERNIE series for free.

Baidu also revealed that on the same day, ERNIE Bot launched a deep search function, which is initially available to members and will be open to all users for free starting April 1. This feature is designed to have reasoning and planning abilities, as well as the capacity to use external tools, providing expert-level responses and handling complex multi-scenario tasks with multimodal input and output.

It’s noteworthy that ERNIE Bot was among the first in China to adopt a paid model. On November 1, 2023, Baidu launched a professional version of ERNIE Bot, priced at 59.9 RMB/month, with a discounted rate of 49.9 RMB/month for continuous subscriptions. However, with ongoing technological updates, Baidu has now decided to make ERNIE Bot free. The free version currently uses ERNIE Large Model 3.5, while ERNIE Large Model 4.0, the tool version, and the 4.0 Turbo version remain paid.

Overall, the competition in the AI language model market is becoming increasingly fierce, with major tech companies adjusting their strategies and launching new products and features to respond to changing market demands and technological challenges. Whether it’s OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 and GPT-5 or Baidu’s ERNIE Bot, these developments show that the rapid growth and innovation in the field of AI will continue to shape the landscape of the entire tech industry.