: Baidu stock jumps as China-based search engine’s generative AI product Ernie is now open to the public

Shares of Baidu Inc. BIDU rallied 4.0% in afternoon trading Wednesday, after the China-based internet search and online marketing company said its generative artificial-intelligence (AI) product and language model, Ernie, is fully open to the public. In addition, Baidu said the Ernie bot is set to launch new AI-native apps that allow users to the core abilities of generative AI, which are understanding, generation, reasoning and memory. Benchmark analyst Fawne Jiang reiterated the buy rating on Baidu’s stock, and $210 price target. “We believe the technology could provide an opportunity to reimagine many of [Baidu’s] products and services, making their search more natural and intuitive, unlocking new types of questions search could satisfy, attracting users to dig deeper on knowledge-based topics,” Jiang wrote in a note to clients. “Increasing user engagement should open up incremental commercialization opportunities on ad or on fee-based services.” Baidu’s stock has run up 17.1% since it closed at a three-month low of $124.92 on Aug. 21. Over the same time, the iShares MSCI China ETF MCHI has gained 5.0% and the S&P 500 SPX has tacked on 2.7%.

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