Author | Huang Yu
Edited by Zhou Zhiyu
Three days after the controversy over a short video by Baidu's vice president Xuan Jing, she left the company at the speed of light.
On the evening of May 9, Wall Street learned from a number of people familiar with the matter that Xuan Jing's information on Baidu's internal work platform showed that she had left her job.
Behind the turmoil is the business pressure and traffic anxiety that Baidu is facing in the current market environment.
Recently, with Lei Jun as the symbol, well-known entrepreneurs have gone down to grab traffic, from the founders of car companies to technology tycoons, all involved in this new war.
As one of the hottest AI companies in the capital market at present, Baidu also wants to gain more say in the AI era, use "sky-high traffic" to train AI large models, or promote the commercialization of large models, especially on the C-side.
Baidu, which has continuously invested in artificial intelligence for more than ten years, cannot afford to lose in this crucial battle to turn around. Robin Li and Baidu must find their own way between short-term exit and continuous operation, and regain their glory.
Traffic grabbing
Regarding Xuan Jing's resignation, people familiar with Baidu believe that Robin (Robin Li) personally handled it. Otherwise, according to the general process, the executive leaves would not be so fast.
On the afternoon of May 9, Robin Li held an internal meeting to commend outstanding employees, and said with some excitement, "You (excellent employees) are the real Baidu."
The quick and decisive resolution of events and people that affect the company's image and reputation is a rare thunderous trend for the elegant Robin Li, and it also reflects from the side how determined Baidu is to promote the current new AI business and clear its obstacles.
Ten years ago, Baidu's status as its core business search was unchallenged, making it the undisputed vanguard of "BAT".
However, in the past decade, the shift from PCs to mobile Internet, the shift of information flow from text to video, and the rapid rise of platforms such as WeChat, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Kuaishou have all challenged Baidu's leading position in search portals.
With the advent of ChatGPT, the AI era has officially arrived, and large models have also become an entrance. How to guide a large number of users to a large model is the most important thing for Baidu, which is betting heavily on the large model and launching Wenxin Yiyan.
Wenxin Yiyan, which has been online for a year, has achieved the evolution from version 3.0 to version 3.5 and then to version 4.0. More and more enterprises and developers are choosing to use Wenxin models to develop their own AI native applications, and the daily call volume of Wenxin models continues to rise.
According to the latest data released by Baidu, by April 16, the number of Wenxin Yiyan users exceeded 200 million, the average daily API call volume exceeded 200 million, the number of customers served reached 85,000, and the number of AI native applications developed using the Qianfan platform exceeded 190,000.
It is worth mentioning that compared with a year ago, the algorithm training efficiency of Wenxin large model has been increased to 5.1 times, the average weekly training efficiency rate has reached 98.8%, the inference performance has been improved by 105 times, and the inference cost has been reduced to 1%.
However, Wenxin Yiyan also has many competitors. According to information from QuestMobile, a third-party business intelligence data service provider, as of March this year, the number of AIGC (artificial intelligence-generated content) independent app users exceeded 73.8 million, an increase of 8 times year-on-year. Douyin's doubao, Baidu's Wenxin Yiyan, Kunlun Wanwei's Tiangong, iFLYTEK's iFLYTEK Xinghuo, and the dark side of the moon's Kimi intelligent assistant have all developed rapidly.
At the same time, after the initial novelty has passed, increasing user access and stickiness has become a common problem faced by all large model players.
In addition, whether it is autonomous driving or AI applications such as Wenxin Yiyan, Baidu needs to strengthen C-end communication more than ever at the business level and find room for growth in the C-end market. Robin Li bluntly said that AI is setting off a creative revolution, and developing applications in the future is as simple as shooting a short video, and everyone is a developer and creator. He wants more ordinary users to join this wave of AI through Wenxin's words.
As a result, drainage through short video platforms such as Douyin, Channels, and Xiaohongshu has become the focus of Baidu's current efforts. This is also the background of Xuan Jing's own short video as the vice president of public relations. Although this attempt was not successful for Baidu.
But such waves will not affect Baidu's continued exploration in the field of AI. On May 9, Cui Shanshan, senior vice president of Baidu Group, emphasized at an internal event that it is necessary to defend Baidu's "simple and reliable" values and never stop innovating.
Giants look forward to
On the other side of traffic anxiety, it is undeniable that Baidu has taken the lead in the field of AI and is one of the hottest AI concept stocks and giants in the current capital market.
What does the future of AI look like? No one has been able to see it yet. But there is no doubt that those AI players who are technologically advanced and can find a path to commercialization will become the kings of the next era.
Over the past 10 years, Baidu has continued to bet on autonomous driving and artificial intelligence, and hopes to reproduce its glory in the PC era in the AI era.
From the establishment of the Deep Learning Research Institute in 2013, to the direct opening of AI core capabilities to partners in 2016, to Robin Li's shouting of "All in AI" in 2017, Baidu's investment in AI technology has also become more resolute. According to statistics, Baidu has invested more than 140 billion yuan in AI technology research and development in the past 11 years. Last year, Baidu invested 24.2 billion yuan in R&D, an increase of 4% year-on-year.
Such an investment has already begun to show commercial value. In the B-end market, Baidu's AI capabilities have been recognized by the industry. Both Apple and Tesla have chosen Baidu as their AI technology partner in the Chinese market.
At the beginning of March, Shen Dou, executive vice president of Baidu Group and president of Baidu Intelligent Cloud Business Group, said in response to the cooperation with Apple that Baidu already had a partner like Honor, and Baidu's cooperation with terminal manufacturers has great potential.
Subsequently, at the end of April, Baidu Maps announced that the lane-level map data was fully open for cooperation, and the advanced assisted driving verification and fully unmanned driving verification of relevant car companies had been completed. Wall Street also learned from people familiar with the matter that the above-mentioned related car companies include Tesla.
Baidu's financial report shows that Baidu Intelligent Cloud's total revenue in the fourth quarter of last year was 8.4 billion yuan, of which the large model brought about 660 million yuan of incremental revenue to the cloud business. Robin Li expects this incremental revenue to reach billions of yuan by 2024.
For Robin Li and Baidu, after more than a decade of continuous investment and exploration, it has found a way to commercialize AI faster than other technology companies. Next, it is how to use the leading edge of technology and business model to reinvent itself.
Morgan Stanley expects AI technology to bring about 3 billion yuan in incremental advertising revenue to Baidu in 2024. Moody's pointed out that Baidu, driven by AI technology, continues to promote the monetization of related businesses, which can help it maintain stable revenue. This means that Baidu's investment in AI technology has entered a period of blossoming and fruition, and is reflected in the operation and financial level.
For Baidu, it also hopes to empower other companies through its leading edge and drive more people to accelerate into the AI era. This is also the role that technology giants should play in the period of technological innovation, stimulating the industrial chain to go hand in hand while achieving themselves.
It is destined to be a difficult road. Robin Li also said frankly at an internal meeting on May 9, "The large model Baidu is at the forefront, we need to brave the no-man's land, and we need to take risks that no one has taken before." But Baidu has always believed that technology can change the world, and will continue to follow this path. ”
In the current AI field, big technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple have emerged, and independent AI startups at home and abroad, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Dark Side of the Moon, and Zhipu AI, have also emerged, and future giants are likely to emerge among them.
The dawn of the AI era has appeared, and Baidu has taken the lead in this field, and its technology accumulation and business practices are expected to burst out with greater potential.
In the near future, Robin Li will also lead Baidu's team to redouble their efforts to prove the value of technology once again. At that time, Baidu will likely usher in the "iPhone moment", re-become a giant in the new era, and stand on the top again.
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