China's Baidu Ditches Public Launch Of ChatGPT-Like Bot — What's Going On?

In a last-minute shock, Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc. BIDU canceled the highly-anticipated public launch of its chatGPT-like product, Ernie Bot. 

What Happened: Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, called off a previously announced public live-streamed product launch of its Ernie Bot, similar to chatGPT, reported Reuters. 

The webcast, scheduled for Monday afternoon, was instead switched to a private closed-door meeting with the initial batch of companies testing the product. 

See Also: Bard Vs. ChatGPT Vs. Bing: The Battle Of The AI Chatbots Heats Up

Baidu stated that the modification in the format was to cater to the "strong demand" of 120K companies that had applied to test Ernie Bot, adding that several others would follow this initial private meeting in the future, the report noted.  

Why It's Important: Baidu's CEO Robin Li unveiled Ernie Bot on March 16. The company's AI-powered service is similar to OpenAI's chatGPT. 

Baidu, also known as China's Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL Google, is not the only company trying to introduce technology on a par with OpenAI's AI-powered chatbot. 

Microsoft Corporation MSFT has launched a new version of its search engine, Bing, by incorporating chatGPT's abilities, while Google introduced Bard, a language model for dialogue applications.  

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