(Yicai Global) March 17 -- Baidu's stock price rebounded as investors restored their faith in the Chinese search giant's Ernie Bot one day after the release of the fresh ChatGPT-like chatbot while thousands of users applied to test the product to improve it.

Baidu's Hong Kong-listed shares [HKG: 9888] surged 13.8 percent to close at HKD142.40 (USD18.10) after falling by 6.4 percent yesterday when the large language model was launched without a live demo, sparking speculation on social media about its performance.

The tech company's New York-listed shares [NASDAQ: BIDU] closed 3.8 percent up at USD138.16 yesterday.

Over 75,000 enterprise users have applied to test Ernie Bot, and Baidu has received 6,080 consultation inquiries from companies for business cooperation, the Beijing-based company said in a statement today. The artificial intelligence product is now open for testing with an invite code.

The latest share price fluctuations show that investors pin their hopes on the AI product but are also worried and disappointed about it, Zhang Yi, chief executive of iiMedia Research Group, said to Yicai Global today. However, Baidu's capital market performance in Hong Kong today proves that investors and the market have confidence in Ernie Bot, he added.

Baidu, which has large resources to expand its AI offering from autonomous driving into other areas, may be able to find a niche in business-to-consumer applications for AI as so far most Chinese AI firms are struggling to make a profit from their business-to-business solutions.

But machine learning models need to be trained and ChatGPT has a big first-mover advantage. Professionals who tested Ernie Bot said to Yicai Global that the Chinese model lags behind ChatGPT in conversing. "Just like children, one is able to walk, while the other just started to learn how to crawl."

Ernie Bot may become smarter as Baidu gradually opens access for more people for testing, and there will be more iterations, the sources added.

Editors: Shi Yi, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi