In 2024, the competition focus of the large model industry has extended from volume parameters and performance to commercial implementation, and various AI applications have begun to emerge. Industry analysis suggests that as model performance, inference costs, and application ecology gradually mature, large-scale model applications are on the eve of an explosion.
Among them, AI search has become a battleground for strategists in the era of big models and a new trend for capital investment. Overseas, AI search startup Perplexity is undergoing a new round of financing of at least $250 million, with a valuation of $3 billion, highlighting the commercial value brought by Google and Microsoft Bing.
In China, in addition to Baidu, 360, Alibaba and others, Zhihu has also officially entered AI search. On June 29th, Zhou Yuan, founder and CEO of Zhihu, released the AI search product "Zhihu Direct Answer" at the New Knowledge Conference. The product has an independent domain name of zhida.ai, which is a revolutionary innovation initiated by Zhihu against traditional search engines and question answering models. Once released, "Zhihu Zhida" was considered as the "Chinese version of Simplicity" and not only welcomed by users, but also quickly gained favor in the capital market. On July 3rd, the Hong Kong stock market of Zhihu closed up 5.04%, while the US stock market rose by over 15% during the trading session.
Zhihu captures the wind and enters the AI search of the game
In recent years, artificial intelligence has sparked a new wave of technology, from basic big models to AI application products, Zhihu is one of the most responsive companies. At the two "Zhihu Discovery Conferences" in 2023 and 2024, Zhihu respectively released the "Zhihai Map AI" big model and the community native AI function "Discovery · AI Search", completing two important steps from model development to open product application. Among them, the "Zhi Hai Tu AI" large model is developed on the basis of the mature large model CPM Bee, with parameters worth billions, stronger logical reasoning ability, and faster training and reasoning speed.
At the recently concluded Salt Club New Knowledge Youth Conference, Zhihu officially released its new AI product "Zhihu Direct Answer". This means the formal productization of AI search functions, with independent domain names and service entrances, providing users across the entire network with a better experience in questioning, searching, result generation, and summarization. This product has been launched on the PC and can be used through the "zhida. ai" domain name.
"Zhihu Direct Answer" is based on the real question and answer data of Zhihu creators. It can provide two types of answer generation results: "concise" and "in-depth" according to user needs, and supports "finding content" and "finding people", further shortening the distance between content needs and high-quality answers, and amplifying the circulation effect of community creators and their content.
For example, in the interface input question: What are the domestic enterprises in the field of large models? "Zhihu Direct Answer" not only provides answers, but also provides reference sources for Zhihu respondents, and supports users to further inquire about details.
Zhou Yuan stated that "Zhihu Direct Answer" is an attempt to integrate search, question answering, and follow-up, which not only allows users to discover the answer, but also helps users connect the people behind the answer.
"AI search is a new productivity tool that can solve problems, improve efficiency, and also help us find answers. Connecting the people behind the answers is a connector for us to discover the world. This world is full of answers, but scattered in countless brains. In the era of AI, some answers are also compressed into AI models, and we need tools to reconnect."
By closely connecting users, content, and creators, every question asked by Zhihu Direct Answers is a collision between users and excellent respondents.
"Creators are the core of Zhihu, but there are so many excellent respondents that it was difficult to find them before. However, Zhihu Direct Answers have multi-agent capabilities, one of which is the ability to help users search and discover respondents. You can search for respondents in Direct Answers to obtain their relevant introductions. At the same time, you can also search for respondents by domain, and Direct Answers will organize relevant information and display it to users." The product owner of Zhihu Direct Answers said.
He further pointed out that "Zhihu's use of AI technology is not only to disseminate content, but also to bring users closer together and make people feel that there is warmth behind the answers."
The Chinese version of Perplexity, Zhihu's direct answer is full of imagination
The industry generally believes that AI big models have entered the stage of being the king of implementation, and this year will usher in the first year of big model application. When it comes to the industry that has been most affected, the search field is definitely one of them.
American AI search engine startup Perplexity is undergoing a new round of $250 million financing, with a valuation of $3 billion. Not only have Amazon founders Jeff Bezos and Nvidia been involved, but SoftBank Group also plans to invest $10 million to $20 million. The capital logic behind it is not difficult to understand. Search engines are the largest market, supporting Google's $2 trillion market value. As long as AI search replaces 5% of the traditional search market, it can have rich returns.
Despite being led by search engine giant Google Zhuyu, Perplexity has grown from zero to over ten million monthly active users in less than two years. Its advantage lies in combining AI and search engine functions to provide users with more accurate, rich, and personalized information. Perplexity will provide precise citation links in replies to prevent false information and AI hallucinations, and guide users to explore deeper based on relevant questions they may be interested in.
It can be said that Perplexity has done a good job of answering complex information that traditional search has not done well, which is also the characteristic of Zhihu. In terms of citing content sources and reducing AI hallucinations, Zhihu Zhida, as the Chinese version of Perplexity, has even more obvious content advantages.
As the largest online Q&A community, Zhihu has a large number of professional vertical field respondents who have professional insights and real experiences on questions, which makes Zhihu a natural source of original and high-quality information, becoming its unique feature and moat. Based on the Zhihu community, "Direct Answer" can solve problems that a large number of users cannot solve through traditional search engines, and can also trace the source of content to increase credibility.
The product manager of Zhihu Direct Answer introduced that the sources used for generating the results listed on the "Direct Answer" page are mostly high-quality Chinese content from Zhihu. In order to meet the diversity, richness, and completeness of the answer results, full network data will also be introduced.
"We not only list all the sources of citations, but also trace them at the paragraph or even sentence level, allowing us to see at a more granular level which respondents contributed information and where it was cited. This is Zhihu's consistent respect for the respondents' creators and intellectual property rights. 'Zhihu Direct Answer' strictly traces the source, ensuring the reliability and authenticity of the answers, while also reducing hallucinations in the AI field."
In addition to the content aspect, the advantage of "Zhihu Direct Answer" is also reflected in the user's mind. Zhou Yuan believes that questioning is one of the most direct forms of curiosity and a driving force for the Zhihu community. For a long time, Zhihu has almost been synonymous with the Q&A community, enjoying an exclusive ecological niche in national level applications. In this sense, Zhihu's AI search can be said to be the only way to develop communities and explore new forms of questioning.
As a brand new product, "Zhihu Direct Answer" is more like a key, opening the door to Zhihu's imagination. It is understood that in the future, the product will be developed in both "technology driven" and "product driven" modes, becoming more powerful and user-friendly. Next, "Zhihu Direct Answer" will gradually promote app development and the introduction of multimodal capabilities, while actively exploring external cooperation while integrating more deeply with the Zhihu community.
Currently, AI search is the most deterministic large-scale model application, not only recognized by giants, but also accelerating the influx of startups. From national level applications to the Chinese version of Plexity, the value of Zhihu Direct Answer is being recognized by the market, and its prospects are worth looking forward to.