Will Baidu’s “All in AI” Strategy Bring It Back to the High-Speed Growth Train?

Abstract

We examine whether Baidu’s “All in AI” strategy will return the company back to high growth. Baidu has suffered a slowdown in recent years, mainly due to the decline of search ads and revenue in a mobile era where Baidu is lagging its competitors, such as Alibaba, Tencent, or ByteDance. To make up, Baidu has been actively pursuing other revenue sources and decided on the “All in AI” strategy after some exploration. Baidu is aggressively investing in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and striving to be a leader in AI. We examine five pillars under Baidu’s AI endeavors: the AI-driven mobile ecosystem, AI cloud, intelligent and autonomous driving, digital voice assistants, and AI chips. Although many of the AI initiatives, such as autonomous driving, are still in early stages with insignificant contribution to revenue, they are expected to become the growth engines for the future. In conclusion, our analysis shows Baidu’s AI efforts is promising yet the company will face many technological, financial, and political challenges in the next few years.