Baidu chief Robin Li calls for bold moves to ‘get back on top’ as it readies for AI future, fends off ByteDance in search
- The company briefly slipped out of China’s internet top five by market value recently amid new competition in the search business
Baidu co-founder and chief executive Robin Li Yanhong has called on his employees to make bold moves to “get back on top” as the company prepares to celebrate its 20th birthday.
The company briefly slipped out of China’s internet top five by market value recently amid new competition in the search business and as the company continues its transition into strategic new areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous driving.
“We have abundant resources and a fortified stronghold in strategic areas,” he said. “What we need is more generals who dare to make bold moves and achieve victories and more soldiers who dare to win in tough battles.”
“To strengthen the mobile foundation and lead in AI is our core strategy,” said Li. “We have a huge opportunity to get back on top … I believe we can make Baidu a simple, vision-driven company, as it was when it was born 20 years ago.”
Li’s messages – delivered in an internal memo on Tuesday, a copy of which was obtained by the Post – came as the operator of China’s largest search engine and a national AI champion posted better-than-expected quarterly results.