Samsung swaps Google for Baidu in China

AI features look incredible on a keynote stage until your flagship phone crosses an international border and finds its software backbone completely blocked.

That is the exact reality Samsung ran into with the new Galaxy S24 lineup. While international units rely heavily on Google's Gemini to power Galaxy AI, Samsung made a major pivot for the Chinese market. According to reports from CNBC and The Verge, the Korean tech giant swapped out Google for Baidu's Ernie bot to handle the heavy lifting.

Out with Gemini, in with Ernie

In China, Google services remain unavailable, leaving Samsung with no choice but to find a local partner if it wanted Galaxy AI to actually function.

Baidu stepped in to fill the void. According to official statements, Ernie will handle features like summarizing lengthy articles into organized formats and managing translations across apps.

Baidu touts that its chatbot delivers conversational, humanlike answers. Back in October, Baidu introduced Ernie 4.0, which it described as the most capable version since the bot debuted in November 2022, bringing major leaps in reasoning and comprehension.

On top of standard summarization, Baidu is also powering the real-time call translation feature on Chinese S24 units, along with a localized variation of Google's flagship Circle to Search experience.

A desperate push to regain ground

Dropping Google in China is not just about regulatory hoops. It also reflects Samsung's precarious position in the world's biggest smartphone arena.

Samsung has practically vanished from the top five vendor list in China, watching rival Apple claim the top spot. That downward slide has been unfolding for years, with market reports showing notable underperformance dating back to 2019.

Meanwhile, outside China, Google Gemini remains the core engine behind Galaxy AI. Global buyers get access to tools like Chat Assist and Magic Editor-style photo manipulation, running across a mix of on-device hardware and cloud infrastructure. Samsung also plans to bring these features to select older models, though the Galaxy S22 is excluded, and the company has hinted at eventually charging subscription fees for some tools.

Why it matters

For buyers eyeing the Galaxy S24 in China, this swap changes the equation. Ernie brings strong local language nuance, but anyone expecting the seamless Gemini ecosystem seen in international reviews will get a distinctly different software suite instead.

For the broader tech landscape, Samsung just laid out the blueprint for western hardware makers. If Apple or any other global brand wants to deploy cloud-backed AI features in mainland devices, partnering with domestic giants like Baidu or Alibaba is the only viable path forward.

We think tapping Baidu was the most practical card Samsung could play, but it feels more like damage control than a winning offensive. Local Chinese competitors are already building deeply integrated system-level AI. Simply swapping out Google's backend for Baidu keeps the feature list intact on paper, but it looks unlikely to turn around Samsung's sliding market share on its own.