By Ben Jiang
Baidu, one of China鈥檚 artificial intelligence (AI) champions, said it is using the technology to upgrade and make the most significant changes to the company鈥檚 core internet search service in a decade.
Beijing-based Baidu has now enlarged the mobile app鈥檚 search bar and turned it into a 鈥渟mart box鈥 that supports long text input and handles more tasks than simple text-based queries and information retrieval, according to the company鈥檚 statement on Wednesday.
This search box is capable of handling prompts that are thousands of words long, rather than just a few dozen words.
It could also be used for AI text and image generation, planning trips, identifying objects and writing research reports, thanks to Baidu鈥檚 multimodal Ernie AI models and the integration of more than 18,000 third-party AI agents.
AI agents are programs that are capable of autonomously performing tasks on behalf of a user or another system. Essentially, these agents create a plan of specific tasks and subtasks to complete a goal using available resources.
The upgrade reflects Baidu鈥檚 stated goal to 鈥渆xpand the boundaries of search鈥, from a tool that merely retrieves information into one that helps users complete tasks.
The company said other major changes to its search platform would be rolled out in phases over the coming weeks.
With greater AI integration, Baidu鈥檚 online search platform would enable users, for example, to use a snapshot of a tourist attraction to find its location via the app, which would also be able to offer an audio tour of the place.
The app would also be able to 鈥渞ead through鈥 a user鈥檚 medical report and analyse the person鈥檚 health based on that information.
Those capabilities would mark a significant evolution of Baidu鈥檚 traditional search service amid the growing adoption of AI tools by both consumers and enterprises.
According to a report by search consultancy OneLittleWeb, traffic to the world鈥檚 top 10 chatbots increased 191.67 per cent between April 2023 and March 2025, while traffic to the world鈥檚 top 10 search engines only grew 2.38 per cent over the same period.
Baidu鈥檚 online search upgrade comes right on the heels of the company鈥檚 move to open-source variants of its Ernie 4.5 AI model family, even as it continues to develop proprietary AI systems.
Other major Chinese technology firms, from Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings to ByteDance, have also initiated programmes that leverage their AI expertise to help transform their businesses. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
TikTok parent ByteDance, for example, has used its self-developed AI coding tool, Trae, to improve programmers鈥 coding efficiency.