As Samsung’s Galaxy S24 smartphone lineup launches in China it will feature the Ernie artificial intelligence chatbot from Chinese search giant Baidu Inc., allowing the devices to translate calls in real-time, summarize and power other AI features on the device.

CNBC reported that Baidu Cloud and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced a partnership today that will put the AI at the user’s fingertips as a substitute for Google LLC’s Gemini large language model AI. Samsung announced that the company’s Gemini model would ship with the new S24 smartphones announced last week to provide on-device translation and summarization alongside passing processing power to the cloud for audio and image generation features.

“Now featuring Ernie’s understanding and generation capabilities, the upgraded Samsung Note Assistant can translate content and also summarize lengthy content into clear, intelligently organized formats at the click of a button, streamlining the organization of extensive text,” Baidu and Samsung said in a joint press release shared by CNBC.

Ernie is Baidu’s rival to OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI model that the company launched into the Chinese market in March and unveiled Ernie 4.0 in October. At the end of 2023, the company said that its Ernie Bot AI chatbot service, based on Ernie, had grown to more than 100 million customers. Its AI model and bot were among the first to gain approval from China’s regulatory bodies to be released to the public.

The Ernie model on Samsung’s S24 phones in Chinese markets is most likely because although Android phones are widely sold in China, they often ship without most Google apps and services. That’s because of the so-called “Great Firewall of China,” which limits and censors much communication outside the country and requires services and manufacturers to operate locally.

Despite this, Android devices are a leading platform in China with almost 80% of smartphones, according to market research from Singular, followed by Apple Inc. with just over 20% on iOS. The Google Play store is blocked in China and users must go through alternatives such as the AppInChina app store.

Market intelligence firm IDC said that going into 2024 the advancement of semiconductor technology will drive even more AI functions into personal devices, including smartphones, personal computers and wearable devices that will continue to launch into the market.

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