Baidu goes back to basics as rivals and AI erode search empire

This is a translation of the original article published in Chinese by Shi Xiang.

Baidu’s Mobile Ecosystem Group (MEG) recently held an all-hands meeting where its lead, Julius Luo, admitted that some business segments experienced sluggish growth in 2024, even falling behind competitors or showing negative growth.

Among them, Baidu Search has become a critical battleground as rivals continue to eat away at its market share.

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At the end of last year, market reports indicated that the daily search volume of popular social media platform Xiaohongshu had surged to nearly 600 million queries, approaching half of Baidu’s.

This rise has sparked internal concerns at Baidu, with employees debating the company’s shrinking search dominance. Some questioned, “with DeepSeek-like AI tools for search and Xiaohongshu for content queries, how much space is left for Baidu Search?”

In response, Baidu made a couple moves that signalled a strategic contraction.

Firstly, Baidu’s mobile app team reportedly tested a minimalist version of its app late last year. This version retained only the search bar and key service portals like cloud storage, novels, and short dramas. The Content Feed, dominant inside the original Baidu app, was hidden.

The streamlined version was rolled out in a limited trial. Most users remained unaware of the change because they had to manually enable it. A big reason for the small-scale experiment may be because Baidu’s Content Feed remains a major revenue source.

This change alone may not be enough to protect Baidu Search’s core business. Market observers critiqued the move, saying: “An ad-free homepage doesn’t mean ad-free search results.”

Secondly, Baidu has quietly reverted its app slogan from “百度一下，生活更好” (Use Baidu, live better) to the original “百度一下，你就知道” (Use Baidu, find things out), which was in place from 2005 to 2017.

Image credit: Shi Xiang

Baidu’s slogan has undergone many revisions over the years. In 2005, “use Baidu, find things out” firmly established the company’s identity as China’s leading search engine.

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