Shares of Silicon Valley outfit C3.ai leapt 16.14% before the bell on Friday and were among the top five stocks trending on StockTwits

Competitors Alibaba and Baidu are also working on products similar to the viral chatbot, which so far remains inaccessible in China

Several Chinese tech giants including Baidu, Tencent Alibaba and JD.com are rushing to integrate AI chatbot technology into their products

Users would become more dependent on the Baidu search engine once it is embedded with the AI-powered chatbot, company CEO Robin Li told reporters

Baidu also said earlier this week it will soon finish internal testing for a ChatGPT alternative called 'Ernie Bot'