ERNIE Bot's Public Launch Sparks Frenzy, Baidu's He Junjie: All Product Lines Go All Out to Seize AI Market Opportunities
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"The future lies not in burning money on large models but in burning brainpower on applications," said He Junjie, Senior Vice President of Baidu Group and General Manager of Baidu Mobile Ecosystem Business Group. In the era of large models, the key competition is not about how many large models are built but how many AI-native applications are created.
On August 31, Baidu's ERNIE Bot was opened to the public, and a series of Baidu's AI-native applications were swiftly launched, achieving impressive results: ERNIE Bot answered 33.42 million user questions on its first day, and the "ERNIE Bot App" quickly topped Apple Store's free app rankings, surpassing one million users on its debut. On the first day of ERNIE Bot's public release, Baidu Search handled over 300 million queries using its generative AI engine, with the "AI Companion" feature attracting over 4 million users. Baidu Docs' "AI-Powered PPT" and other document creation tools were used by over 2 million people. This comes just 100 days after He Junjie announced at the Baidu Wanxiang Conference in May that Baidu would "reconstruct its mobile ecosystem with an AI-native mindset."
Amid this year's fierce competition in large models, Baidu stands out as one of the few companies with foresight in large model development. However, for this "veteran internet company" that has navigated the PC and mobile internet eras, rapid transformation in the era of large models is akin to an elephant turning around. So, how did Baidu achieve this?
He Junjie emphasized that this time, it's not about integration or connection but about redoing and reconstructing. "Reconstruction means not fearing mistakes, constantly experimenting, and committing fully to the sprint."
With such determination and transformative efforts in Baidu's mobile ecosystem, the explosive success of the ERNIE Bot App was inevitable. This is a brand-new native application built with an AI-native mindset, breaking the boundaries of language communication. Simply by interacting with it through dialogue, it can provide a variety of useful suggestions and assist with tasks big and small. He Junjie stated, "As an AI assistant accessible to everyone, the ERNIE Bot App will become a personalized, customized Personal AI for each user."
Baidu's mobile ecosystem reconstruction is not just about "launching new products" but also about reinventing every mature business line, starting with its "origin"—the search business. "Search is the most critical stop in reconstruction," He Junjie pointed out. The newly reconstructed Baidu Search has broken the traditional boundaries of search, achieving comprehensive upgrades in search capabilities, formats, services, and content. This means users can now directly converse with Baidu Search's "AI Companion," which not only understands questions but also highlights key points in answers, provides authoritative sources, and even creates images or drafts copy based on user intent, truly ushering in the era of generative intelligent search.
He Junjie revealed that Baidu is currently fostering intense internal competition, with each business line setting phased "military orders" to see who can emerge as the dark horse first.
Baidu Docs is the first "dark horse" to break through. The reconstructed Baidu Docs颠覆s the traditional creation model, allowing users to start with a simple "command"—just "speak" their需求, and it can generate PPTs, articles, work summaries, and more in 30 seconds, effortlessly enabling intelligent "document creation."
The Wenxin App, new search, and document library are merely the visible part of Baidu's comprehensive mobile ecosystem restructuring. He Junjie revealed that this transformation is a dual-pronged approach, simultaneously reconstructing both the B2B and B2C sectors. Beyond consumer-facing products, AI-native thinking will revolutionize all B2B products, services, and workflows.
Baidu's content ecosystem will leverage its six major AI creation tools and intelligent creation assistants to develop "smart-assisted content creation and monetization tools," fundamentally transforming creators' experiences in content production and revenue generation. The commercial ecosystem will be rebuilt through generative AI marketing products like Qingge, Qingduo, and Commercial BOT, revolutionizing advertisers' experiences in ad production and placement while significantly improving efficiency and creating substantial cost-saving opportunities for the entire industry.
He Junjie also emphasized that the "one more thing" in Baidu's mobile ecosystem restructuring is the open plugin ecosystem. "Baidu's mobile products are gradually opening their AI plugin ecosystem to empower developers to create their own AI plugins," he stated. Baidu is inviting application developers to participate in building large language models and mobile product plugins, equipping Wenxin with real-world connectivity capabilities while lowering the barrier for developers to share in the benefits of the large model era, ultimately creating a thriving ecosystem.
It's reported that Baidu's mobile ecosystem restructuring will showcase new progress at this year's Baidu World Conference.