ERNIE Bot,?? ??? Baidu’s AI chat service, has seen 1 million users rush to use it in less than 24 hours since it was made publicly available at midnight Thursday. Fueled by excitement over what is seen by many as China’s main challenger to ChatGPT, users across the country have been able to access the product for the first time after it was approved for general use by the authorities. Along with SenseTime and ZhipuAI, Baidu was among the first batch of companies to win government approval for their AI products, and the ChatGPT-like tool responded to more than 33.4 million user queries within the first day, according to data revealed by the company. [TechNode reporting]