Baidu releases Ernie Bot chatbot, for AI solutions

Chinese search giant and AI solution provider Baidu unveiled its artificial intelligence-powered chatbot on Thursday, becoming the first major Chinese company to unveil a deep-learning model after ChatGPT.

Baidu CEO Robin Li told a press conference in Beijing that Ernie Bot is not a countermeasure against Open AI's initiative, but a natural result from its long-term research efforts.

He expected AI-powered models to be a game changer, and would become easily accessible as a format of cloud service for many industries.

More than 30,000 companies have applied to join the test version through application programming interface following the Thursday afternoon release.

But Baidu's Kong-listed shares tumbled as much as 10 percent in the afternoon before closing down 6.4 percent since the functions of Ernie Bot were presented through pre-recorded videos rather than real-time.

Industry watchers said Baidu's stock has already climbed high prior to the official announcement, and the current version won't have much significant impact on its earnings in the short term.