Baidu overhauls search engine with AI features, voice function
The Beijing-based company said it wants to make its mobile app more like an AI chatbot that can help users with writing, drawing and trip planning tasks. It will focus less on keywords and more on natural language searches and also allow users to perform searches by voice in several Chinese dialects.
Baidu's search engine has grown bloated and overly complicated in recent years, executives told reporters on Wednesday (Jul 2) at an event in Beijing. 'Baidu search has to change, and we are voluntarily looking for changes,' said Zhao Shiqi, the company's search boss. 'We don't intend to beat others, we need to beat our former self.'
Baidu's search platform now contends with social apps like ByteDance's Douyin and AI-native browsers for eyeballs. Its online marketing revenue has declined for four consecutive quarters, underscoring its loss of users. Executives have said that AI-generated search content would eventually help advertising pick up.
Baidu on Wednesday also rolled out its first image-to-video model to compete with the likes of ByteDance and Kuaishou. Executives hope the AI generation function will help marketers create engaging videos on Baidu's social feeds.
Baidu counts on AI to drive inference demand for its nascent cloud division, which competes with much larger rivals like Alibaba Group Holding It's also hoping that its Ernie foundation models will stay competitive against DeepSeek, seeding an entire ecosystem of AI-native applications.
In April, Baidu rolled out Ernie 4.5 Turbo and Ernie X1 Turbo, the latest versions of its flagship foundation and reasoning models that it said are faster and cheaper than previous iterations. The X1 Turbo was designed to compete with open-sourced models like Alibaba's Qwen and DeepSeek, which have gained greater recognition within the global developer community. BLOOMBERG
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