DeepSeek demand shrinking: Baidu founder notes shift away from text-only AI

Chinese tech major Baidu launched Ernie 4.5 Turbo and X1 Turbo, which feature multimodal capabilities including text, image, audio and video

Baidu Co-founder Robin Li said the demand for text-only generative AI models — such as those developed by industry frontrunner DeepSeek — is “shrinking”, in a direct swipe at one of China’s most high-profile AI companies.

 

Speaking at Baidu’s developer conference on Friday, as reported by the Financial Times, Li claimed that while DeepSeek’s large language models had gained early traction, they were now limited by their text-only capabilities. He criticised the models for a higher rate of so-called “hallucinations”, as well as slower performance and greater cost compared to rival domestic offerings.

 

DeepSeek rapid rise in AI ecosystem

DeepSeek had