Baidu Intelligent Cloud and Bear Electric Appliances Join Forces to Enter AI Home Appliances with Cooperation Scale Reaching 100 Million Yuan

On March 12, the opening day of AWE 2026, Baidu Smart Cloud and Little Bear Appliances officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Shanghai.

Both parties announced that they will carry out a 100 million yuan AI strategic partnership over the next three years. Relying on Baidu Wenxin Large Model 5.0 and Baidu Smart Cloud AI technology capabilities, they will conduct in-depth cooperation around AI large models and smart home appliance scenarios, jointly promoting innovation and industry upgrades of next-generation AI small home appliances.

According to the agreement, the two sides will establish a long-term strategic partnership around “AI + Home Appliances + Smart Living.” Through AI technology, they will comprehensively empower product and enterprise operation systems, accelerating the industry’s transition to an AI-native era.

At the product level, the focus will be on upgrading AI capabilities for Little Bear Appliances’ core categories, including air fryers, health kettles, rice cookers, and other small appliances. Based on Wenxin’s large model capabilities, the new generation of AI home appliances will feature natural voice dialogue, intelligent services, and content ecosystem capabilities. Through end-to-end voice interaction (ASR + LLM + TTS), they will achieve low-latency voice control and natural human-machine interaction.

With the empowerment of large model capabilities, home appliances will evolve from single-function devices into intelligent life assistants capable of understanding user needs and providing smart services.

Beyond product innovation, the collaboration will also extend to enterprise digital transformation. Little Bear Appliances will introduce Baidu’s AI coding assistant Comate to improve R&D efficiency, and combine AI digital humans, AIGC content generation, and other capabilities to enhance brand marketing, e-commerce operations, and user services, achieving intelligent upgrades across the entire supply chain from R&D, manufacturing, supply, sales, to after-sales.

“This collaboration focusing on the deployment of AI small home appliance product matrix aligns highly with Baidu’s AI strategy, demonstrating Baidu’s development philosophy of application-centered, deeply integrated technology and scenarios. It is an important implementation of Baidu AI technology in the real economy and consumer scenarios, validating the commercial value of the technology,” said Yuan Foyu, Vice President of Baidu Group, in an interview with Securities Times and other media.

Yuan Foyu pointed out that Baidu’s core advantage is its ability to deeply integrate large model technology with the entire industrial chain, achieving end-to-end implementation from technology to scenarios, rather than just technology output. “AI foundational technology will eventually become commercialized, and Baidu’s application implementation and engineering integration capabilities in real scenarios can provide comprehensive technical support for hardware companies, enabling AI technology to truly create value in hardware products. This is Baidu’s core competitiveness in AI.”

Li Yifeng, General Manager of Little Bear Appliances, told reporters that AI home appliances will transform Little Bear from a simple hardware provider into a partner brand capable of offering scenario-based solutions and emotional value to users. Little Bear’s AI home appliances will become simple embodied intelligent products designed to solve user pain points in specific scenarios, capable of deep interaction with users and providing both functional and emotional value. This will enhance Little Bear’s brand image with a stronger sense of technology and warmth, breaking the common perception of it being only a “high cost-performance ratio” brand.

Li Yifeng emphasized that this cooperation with Baidu is not only a technological partnership but also an important opportunity to upgrade Little Bear’s products. With rich application scenarios in home appliances and Baidu’s leading advantages in large models and AI technology, they hope to enable AI capabilities to truly land in products and user experiences through collaboration, exploring more innovative possibilities in AI home appliances.

It is understood that in the future, both parties will take Wenxin Large Model as the core technological foundation, continuously promote large-scale application of AI technology in the smart home appliance field, and create a new generation of AI small home appliances with understanding, decision-making, and service capabilities. This will evolve home appliances from mere functional devices into intelligent household life partners, jointly driving innovation and development in the AI home appliance industry.