Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, has cancelled a planned livestreamed product launch related to its “Ernie bot” which is similar to the US-developed ChatGPT. The webcast, which was scheduled for Monday afternoon and advertised as open to media and the public, was switched to a closed-door meeting with the first batch of companies that are testing the product. The reason behind the change was to satisfy the “strong demand” from 120,000 companies that had applied to test Ernie bot. Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell as much as 4.5% on initial reports of the cancellation.
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Ernie bot, launched on March 16 by Baidu CEO Robin Li, was demonstrated via a livestreamed presentation that walked journalists through a series of pre-recorded demos displaying the chatbot’s different capabilities. Baidu’s share price dropped while the presentation was still being livestreamed but rebounded the following day due in part to strong demand from the Chinese corporate sector for generative artificial intelligence (AI), the technology powering products like Ernie bot and ChatGPT. Baidu has said that this would be the first of many closed-door meetings.