BEIJING, July 2 (Reuters) - China's Baidu ( BIDU ) on

Wednesday launched an AI-driven video generator for businesses

as well as a major upgrade to its search engine.

The image-to-video model, called MuseSteamer, is capable of

generating videos up to 10 seconds long and comes in three

versions - Turbo, Pro and Lite.

Over the past year, artificial intelligence heavyweights

like OpenAI and big global tech companies have been expanding

beyond chatbots to text-to-video or image-to-video generators.

In China, ByteDance, Tencent ( TCTZF ) and Alibaba ( BABA )

have also launched models.

While many rival products, including OpenAI's Sora, target

consumers with subscription plans, Baidu's ( BIDU ) MuseSteamer is aimed

only at business users and a consumer app is not yet available.

The search engine overhaul includes a redesigned search box

that accepts longer queries and supports voice and image-based

searches. The platform also displays more targeted content using

Baidu's ( BIDU ) AI technology.

Baidu ( BIDU ) has faced increasing pressure as AI-based chatbots

such as ByteDance's Doubao and Tencent's ( TCTZF ) Yuanbao become more

popular.