What happened

Shares of C3.AI (AI 0.09%) surged Tuesday morning after the artificial intelligence-based software company announced the launch of its new C3 Generative AI Product suite, which includes C3 Generative AI for Enterprise Search.

As of 12:17 p.m. ET, the stock was up 26% on the news.

So what

Generative AI describes a form of artificial intelligence that can be used to create content such as code, text, or images, like OpenAI's ChatGPT and DALL-E.

C3.AI describes its Generative AI for Enterprise Search as "a transformative user experience using a natural language interface to rapidly locate, retrieve, and present all relevant data across the entire corpus of enterprise's information systems."

In other words, it will enable employees to quickly and easily locate files, documents, and other data with a simple chat-based request. C3.AI said its new product suite integrates the latest capabilities from companies like OpenAI and Google, as well as academia.

"C3 Generative AI fundamentally changes the human-computer interaction model of enterprise application software," said CEO Thomas Siebel. "Combining the full potential of natural language, generative pre-trained transformers, enterprise AI, and predictive analytics will change everything about enterprise computing."

Now what

C3.AI works with mostly enterprise-level customers like large oil and natural gas companies, and government organizations like the U.S. Department of Defense, which have massive amounts of data and information that they need to access. One former Defense Department official called the new technology "game-changing."

Investors are clearly excited about the next wave of AI products after the introduction of ChatGPT as BuzzFeed stock more than doubled after it said it would use ChatGPT for some content generation on its site last week.

The implication for C3.AI could be significant as generative AI could be useful in a wide range of applications. The new product suite is scheduled for general release in March, and investors should expect to learn more when it launches.

C3.AI plunged last year, so if this new suite is indeed a game-changer, the AI stock could have a lot of room to rebound and run upward.