Search engine giant Baidu on Monday cancelled a planned livestreamed product launch related to its ChatGPT-like Ernie bot that it had advertised as being open to media and the public.
The webcast, scheduled for Monday afternoon, was switched to a closed-door meeting with the first batch of companies that are testing the product, Baidu said in a statement on Monday morning.
Baidu said the reason behind the change in format was in order to satisfy the strong demand from 120,000 companies that had applied to test Ernie bot. Baidu said this would be the first of many closed-door meetings.
Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell as much as 4.5 percent on Monday morning on initial reports of the cancellation.
Ernie bot, a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, was launched on March 16 by Baidu CEO Robin Li, who gave a livestreamed presentation that walked journalists through a series of pre-recorded demos displaying the Chinese chatbot’s different capabilities.
