Credit: Visual China

BEIJING,November 2 (TMTPost) -- Baidu's large-scale model "Wenxin Yiyan" platform launched a paid membership mode on Wednesday morning, which was the first AI large-model product in China to charge consumers directly. 

The Wenxin Yiyan membership is priced at 59.9 yuan for a single month and 49.9 yuan for continuous monthly subscriptions. It automatically renews in the following month at 49.9 yuan/month, cancelable at any time. Moreover, Baidu introduced the joint membership of Wenxin Yiyan 4.0 + Wenxin Yige Silver, priced at 99 yuan per month. The basic version of Wenxin Yiyan 3.5 functionality is still freely available, which can meet users' daily needs, such as interactive dialogue, Q&A, and more.

The Wenxin Yiyan membership benefits include the Wenxin Large Model 4.0 capability, upgraded image generation, text-promted image capability, plug-in benefits, high-end plug-ins, and gift points. Meanwhile, Wenxin Yige membership benefits include rapidly generating multi-sized high-definition images, creating posters and artistic characters, and AI image modifying.

Wenxin Large Model 4.0 was officially unveiled in October this year. Baidu's founder and CEO, Robin Li, said that it is the most powerful Wenxin large model to date, achieving a comprehensive upgrade of the basic model with noticeable improvements in understanding, generation, logic, and memory capabilities, making its overall level "not inferior to GPT-4".

Presently, there are three paid large-model products targeting consumers around the world: OpenAI's ChatGPT and GPT-4.0 (US$20 per month), the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion (starting at US$8 per month), and "Quora's Overseas Edition" Poe AI, an AI chatbot application.

From a product experience perspective, GPT-4 slightly outperforms others. OpenAI introduced a paid trial subscription plan, ChatGPT Plus, in February this year, priced at US$20  per month. The paid version features peak-time queue bypass, rapid response, and priority access to new functions and improvements.

Earlier reports suggested that OpenAI's revenue this year would reach US$1.3 billion, a 45-fold year-on-year increase. The income mainly comes from two parts: 1) ChatGPT personal paid services; 2) sales revenue from enterprise and developer's large-model API authorizations. Most of the income comes from the paid version of ChatGPT Plus.

Opinions on the paid membership of the Wenxin large model vary among online commenters. Some netizens said that the application of AI large models is not yet mature, and enterprise applications are still in the exploration stage, so early charging might not necessarily yield effective results. Others argue that if they don't charge now, with more companies entering the market later, Baidu might miss out. They suggest that Chinese enterprises don't earn money from technology but from timing. 

Li previously mentioned the progress of the Wenxin large model in the four major capabilities of understanding, generation, logic, and memory. He noted that these abilities are the foundation on which all AI native applications survive. Similarly, without a rich AI-native application ecosystem built on top of the basic model, large models are worthless. He also pointed out that Baidu aims to be the first company to completely restructure all its products.

"AI won't just replace humans; it can also save humans," Li said in a speech.

Regarding the payment for Wenxin Yiyan, Baidu has not provided any further response at present. 

On Wednesday, Baidu shares in Hong Kong fell by 0.94% to HK$92.25 per share. Baidu's U.S. stocks (NASDAQ: BIDU) closed down 1.10% on Tuesday at US$105 per share. in the year-to-date, Baidu's Hong Kong stocks have accumulated a decline of 8.95%, while its U.S. stocks have a cumulative decline of 8.2%, with a market value of US$36.708 billion.

(This article was first published on the TMTPost App. Author | Lin Zhijia)