(Yicai Global) Feb. 10 -- Some Chinese companies are capitalizing on the popularity of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, which has been taking the world by storm recently, to develop their own similar products or to hijack the name as the US artificial intelligence lab has yet to introduce the service to the Chinese mainland.

Accounts labelled ‘ChatGPT’ have been springing up on internet giant Tencent Holdings’ instant messenger WeChat, Yicai Global has learned. Some even charge for their services. The operator of ‘ChatGPT Online’ offers multiple packages at different prices. For CNY999.99 (USD147), for instance, users can have unlimited interactions for a year.

Some copycat versions do provide responses that are actually from ChatGPT and this can be achieved by linking with the OpenAI interface, Beijing Daily reported, citing an employee at Shanghai Shangyun Network Technology, operator of 'ChatGPT Online.'

But the long delays and wrong versions provided by other mimicking versions indicate that they are probably using other AI-generated dialogues, the report said.

Since its debut in November last year, ChatGPT has become extremely popular thanks to its human-like conversations and skilled content-generating ability, racking up more than 10 million daily active users.

The software is available for free, but San Francisco-based OpenAI said earlier this month that it will soon launch a paid version, ChatGPT Plus, with a monthly charge of USD20.

The success of ChatGPT has also lured the world’s tech giants to tap into this sector. US search engine titan Google debuted its AI chatbot service Bard on Feb. 8, while its Chinese rival Baidu said it will make a similar product named ERNIE available to the public next month.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Kim Taylor