Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) Rolling Out Duer, Its Own Personal Assistant

Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) has come up with Duer to support simplified but more effective searches on mobile. Duer is a personal assistant tool that can be put into various uses, including intelligent search of information about entertainment, healthcare and education, among others. The field of digital assistants is expanding rapidly, with Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) also recently showing up with M. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have also moved to enrich their own versions of personal assistants.

Duer is promising to streamline the search for information on mobile. The feature has already been integrated into various Baidu-owned apps, but the company has plans to get more third-party developers involved to widen the access to the tool.

Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) says that Duer will be able to put a label on different business aspects to come up with categorized information that is easily searchable. The company is relying on its ability to gather and analyze data to make Duer a better, more intelligent tool for meaningful searches.

Covered sectors

Baidu’s CEO, Robin Li, hinted about the scope of Duer at the Baidu World Congress 2015. He said that the feature will cover several sectors that include tourism, film, healthcare and education, among others.

Beyond showing relevant search results, Duer provides additional but useful information about the search item. For example, if you want to look for a restaurant, Duer will be able to show you the location of the restaurants, foods served there, rooms with television sets and whether the restaurant allows visitors to come with their pets. If you like to follow celebrities, Duer will also enable you to know the celebrities that have dined in a restaurant that you are searching.

Work in progress

Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU)’s Duer is still a work in progress and the company is hoping to engage third-party developers to make it better over time.

Duer is to mobile what Search Box was to PC

Li likens Duer to Search Box in the PC era, where people could implement search features on every website. Duer is a way to bring intelligent search to mobile apps for better user engagement.

Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU)’s Duer is just part of a grand story in the personal assistant space. Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) are also becoming serious with digital assistant offerings.