Baidu unveils ChatGPT-rival Ernie Bot; 650 companies sign up

Chinese search giant Baidu has unveiled its artificial intelligence chatbot Ernie Bot, presenting its rival to the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT in a pre-recorded video presentation that appeared to disappoint investors. Baidu CEO Robin Li said Ernie Bot was still not perfected, but the company went ahead with presenting it due to high demand. Baidu’s shares fell as much as 10% during the demonstration and were down 7.4% by late afternoon. Li said that 650 companies have signed up to use Ernie Bot, which can be implemented applications such as search, AI cloud, autonomous driving and in smart devices.