China AI champion Baidu rolls out most sweeping changes to search platform in a decade

As an initial effort, Baidu’s search bar was enlarged and turned into a ‘smart box’ that handles more tasks than simple text queries

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Baidu’s platform upgrade reflects the firm’s stated goal to “expand the boundaries of search” using AI. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 10:00pm, 2 Jul 2025Updated: 10:03pm, 2 Jul 2025

Baidu, one of China’s artificial intelligence (AI) champions, said it is using the technology to upgrade and make the most significant changes to the company’s core internet search service in a decade.

Beijing-based Baidu has now enlarged the mobile app’s search bar and turned it into a “smart box” that supports long text input and handles more tasks than simple text-based queries and information retrieval, according to the company’s 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’s 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’s stated goal to “expand the boundaries of search”, 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.

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