BEIJING/SHANGHAI, March 17 (Reuters) - Hong Kong-listed shares in China's Baidu (9888.HK), rebounded 15.7% on Friday as users told of their experiences with the Ernie bot, recouping losses from a day earlier prompted by the chatbot's launch, which failed to impress. One user described on the Weibo social media platform how Ernie had answered a question about the status of Hong Kong philosopher Zhang Jinqing accurately. Analysts also said the initial disappointment the market felt from the launch was tempered by the realisation that the Chinese search engine giant was still best placed to build China's strongest rival to ChatGPT. More than 75,000 corporate users have applied for a trial of an Ernie API developed by Baidu Cloud, the Chinese company said in a video published on its official WeChat account on Friday. Reporting by Eduardo Baptista and Jason Xue; Additional reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Gerry DoyleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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