Robin Li "quickly approves" Xu Jing resigns

Author | Huang Yu

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

Three days after the short video of Baidu Vice President Xu Jing sparked controversy, she swiftly resigned from the company.

On the evening of May 9th, Wall Street News learned from multiple sources that Xu Jing's internal information on Baidu's work platform indicated that she had left the company.

Behind the Xu Jing incident lies the business pressure and traffic anxiety that Baidu is facing in the current market environment.

Recently, with Lei Jun as a symbol, well-known entrepreneurs have been rushing to seize traffic, from automotive industry founders to tech giants, all getting involved in this new war.

As one of the hot AI companies in the capital market at the moment, Baidu also aims to gain more influence in the AI era, training AI large models with "sky-high traffic" or promoting the commercialization of large models, especially in the consumer market.

Having invested in artificial intelligence for over a decade, Baidu cannot afford to lose in this crucial battle for a turnaround. Both Li Yanhong and Baidu must find their way between short-term breakthroughs and sustained operations to regain their former glory.

Traffic Seizure

Regarding Xu Jing's resignation, insiders familiar with Baidu believe that this was personally handled by Robin (Li Yanhong). Otherwise, according to the usual process, the departure of a senior executive would not be so swift.

On the afternoon of May 9th, Li Yanhong held an internal meeting to commend outstanding employees and expressed somewhat excitedly, "You (outstanding employees) are the true representatives of Baidu."

Swiftly and decisively resolving events and individuals that affect the company's image and reputation is a rare display of thunderous momentum from the elegant Li Yanhong, reflecting how resolute Baidu is in clearing obstacles for advancing its current AI new business.

A decade ago, Baidu was flourishing, with an unchallenged position in its core search business, making it the indisputable leader among the "BAT" companies.

However, the tech industry landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade. The shift from PC to mobile internet, the transition of information flow from text to video, and the rapid rise of platforms like WeChat, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Kuaishou have all posed challenges to Baidu's leading position in search entry.

With the emergence of ChatGPT, the AI era has officially arrived, and large models have become an entry point. How to guide a massive number of users to large models is currently the most important task for Baidu, which heavily relies on large models and has launched Wenxin Yiyuan.

Wenxin Yiyuan, which has been online for a year, has evolved from version 3.0 to 3.5, and now to version 4.0. More and more companies and developers are choosing to call on Wenxin's large models to develop their own AI native applications, with the daily call volume of Wenxin's large models continuing to rise.

Baidu's latest data shows that as of April 16th, Wenxin Yiyuan has surpassed 200 million users, with API daily call volume exceeding 200 million, serving 85,000 customers, and the number of AI native applications developed using the Qianfan platform exceeding 190,000 It is worth mentioning that compared to a year ago, the algorithm training efficiency of Wenxin's large model has increased by 5.1 times, with a weekly training effectiveness reaching 98.8%, a 105-fold improvement in reasoning performance, and a reduction in reasoning costs to 1% of the original.

However, Wenxin Yanyi also has many competitors. Third-party business intelligence data service provider QuestMobile's information shows that as of March this year, the independent app user base of AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) exceeded 73.8 million, an 8-fold increase year-on-year. Rapidly developing competitors include Douyin's Dou Bao, Baidu's Wenxin Yanyi, Kunlun Wanwei's Tiangong, iFLYTEK's Xunfei Xinghuo, and Moon's Dark Side's Kimi Intelligent Assistant.

At the same time, after the initial novelty wears off, increasing user traffic and stickiness have become a common challenge for all major model players.

Furthermore, whether it is autonomous driving or AI applications like Wenxin Yanyi, Baidu needs to strengthen C-end communication at the business level more than ever before and find growth opportunities in the C-end market. Li Yanhong bluntly stated that AI is ushering in a creativity revolution, where developing applications in the future will be as simple as making a short video, and everyone will be a developer and creator. He wants to enable more ordinary users to join this AI wave through Wenxin Yanyi.

As a result, diverting traffic through short video platforms such as Douyin, Video Number, and Xiaohongshu has become Baidu's current focus. This is also the background for Qu Jing, as the Vice President of Public Relations, to personally create short videos. Although this attempt was not successful for Baidu.

However, such waves will not affect Baidu's continued exploration in the field of AI. On May 9th, Cui Shanshan, Senior Vice President of Baidu Group, emphasized at an internal event the need to defend Baidu's values of "simplicity and reliability" and to innovate without stopping.

Expectations from Giants

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 hot AI concept stocks and giants in the current capital market.

What will the future of AI be like? No one can see it clearly yet. But undoubtedly, those AI players who are technologically advanced and can find commercial paths will become the kings of the next era.

For over a decade, Baidu has been continuously investing in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence, hoping to recreate its glory from the PC era in the AI era.

From establishing the Deep Learning Institute in 2013, to directly opening up core AI capabilities to partners in 2016, to Li Yanhong's declaration of "All in AI" in 2017, Baidu's commitment to AI technology has become more resolute. According to statistics, Baidu has invested over 140 billion yuan in AI technology over the past 11 years. Last year, Baidu's R&D expenditure reached 24.2 billion yuan, a 4% increase year-on-year.

Such investments have already shown 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 In early March, Shen Dou, Executive Vice President of Baidu Group and President of Baidu Intelligent Cloud Business Group, responded to the cooperation with Apple by stating that Baidu had already had partners like Honor, and that cooperation with terminal manufacturers had great potential.

Later, at the end of April, Baidu Maps announced the full opening of lane-level map data cooperation, and had completed advanced driver assistance verification and fully autonomous driving verification with relevant car manufacturers. Wall Street News also learned from insiders that the aforementioned car manufacturers 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, with large models bringing in about 660 million yuan in incremental revenue for the cloud business. Li Yanhong predicts that by 2024, this incremental revenue is expected to reach tens of billions of yuan.

For Li Yanhong and Baidu, after more than a decade of continuous heavy investment and exploration, they have found a faster way to commercialize AI in the field compared to other tech companies. The next step is how to use their leading technological and business model advantages to reshape themselves.

Morgan Stanley predicts that AI technology will bring Baidu approximately 3 billion yuan in additional advertising revenue by 2024. Moody's also points out that Baidu, driven by AI technology, can help maintain revenue stability by continuously advancing the monetization of related businesses. All of this indicates that Baidu's investment in AI technology is entering a period of fruition, reflected in its operations and financial aspects.

For Baidu, it also hopes to empower other companies and accelerate more people into the AI era through its leading advantages. This is also the role that tech giants should play during the period of technological innovation explosion, stimulating the industry chain to advance together while achieving their own success.

This is destined to be a difficult road. Li Yanhong also admitted at an internal meeting on May 9th, "Baidu is at the forefront with large models, we need to venture into uncharted territory, we need to take risks that predecessors have not taken. But Baidu has always believed that technology can change the world and will continue to walk down this path."

In the current AI field, major players 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 Zhifu AI continue to emerge. The future giants are likely to emerge among them.

The dawn of the AI era has emerged, and Baidu is already leading the way in this field. Its technological accumulation and business practices are expected to unleash even greater potential.

In the near future, Li Yanhong will lead the Baidu team to work even harder to once again prove the value of technology. By then, Baidu may usher in an "iPhone moment" and become a new era giant, once again reaching the peak