On October 15th, Interface News reporters learned from sources close to Baidu that the Baidu Health Group (HCG) will be merged into the Mobile Ecology Group (MEG). This is the downgrade of the Health Business Group from the Health Business Group to a business unit under the Mobile Ecology Business Group.
In the nearly three years since its establishment, HCG has continuously innovated in the content construction and commercial products of the health track. We would like to thank Mingke and its team for their contributions. In the new situation of rapid development of the intelligent ecosystem, we look forward to further integration of the health business with the search market and mobile ecology, complementing each other's advantages and achieving more significant development
In addition, the Health Business Unit, which will be merged into the Mobile Ecology Business Group, will be under the responsibility of Yang Minglu. Yang Minglu had previously served as the team leader of Baidu Health. At the end of 2023, due to internal rotation within the group, Yang Minglu was transferred from Baidu Health. According to insiders, Yang Minglu was transferred from Baidu Health to the Mobile Ecology Business Group for rotation at that time. At present, apart from personnel changes, the business framework of Baidu Health has not been adjusted.
In addition, Baidu also announced in an internal letter its latest round of cadre rotation, with Julius Luo, Executive Vice President of Baidu Group, taking over as the head of the Mobile Ecology Business Group and no longer serving as the Group CFO (Chief Financial Officer); Baidu Group's Senior Vice President, He Junjie (Jackson), has rotated to become the Acting CFO and will no longer serve as the head of the Mobile Ecology Business Group.
This round of personnel changes is concentrated in the mobile ecological business group, which includes most of the core businesses of Baidu Group, such as Baidu Search, Baidu App, Wenxiaoyan (original Xinyan App), Baidu Online Disk, Baidu Library, Baidu Wenxin Intelligent Agent, etc. According to the aforementioned person, Baidu's mobile ecosystem business group is the most important basic business of Baidu, and after Baidu Health fully embraces AI, it often needs to collaborate with the mobile ecosystem business group at the business level, integrating the health business group into the mobile ecosystem business group is more convenient for work development.
Baidu's medical sector has gone through ups and downs. In 2015, Baidu established its Baidu Healthcare division, but it was disbanded just over two years later. Until 2020, when the COVID-19 broke out, the Internet online medical station went up, Baidu tried medical again, and Baidu Health was born. Baidu selects Yang Minglu, who once made the blockbuster Baidu Health Medical Code, as the team leader and reports directly to CEO Robin Lee. At that time, Baidu Health belonged to the mobile ecosystem business group.
In the hands of Yang Minglu, the health section of Baidu has developed rapidly. In April 2021, also the next year of Baidu Health's establishment, Yang Minglu said at the "Vientiane" 2021 Baidu Mobile Ecology Conference that Baidu Health has built five service systems, including health science popularization, online consultation, health mall, chronic disease management and Internet hospital, by virtue of Baidu search, Baidu App and other traffic access advantages, Baidu smart applet technology support and its own medical resource accumulation.
Baidu Health's scale continues to expand. In November 2021, Baidu officially established the Big Health Business Group, becoming the fifth largest business group of Baidu Group. He Mingke was appointed as the Senior Vice President of Baidu Health and the President of the Big Health Business Group. Baidu Big Health Business Group is composed of Baidu Health under the mobile ecological business group, Lingyi Zhihui under the smart cloud business group (ACG) and the acquired medical information data provider GBI, which respectively correspond to the three major sectors of Internet medicine, smart medicine and pharmaceutical enterprise services.
In recent years, with the development of AI, Baidu Health has also fully embraced big models, "All in AI". Based on the Lingyi model, Baidu Health has launched five major model application products: a family of health intelligent agents for ordinary users; Copilot for online healthcare for doctors and patients; AI intelligent outpatient service for hospitals; The privatization product CDSS (Clinical Decision Support System) for large models; An open platform for spiritual medicine for enterprises.
Simply put, Baidu Health has a presence in patients, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. Moreover, compared with its peers, Baidu Health's layout speed and achievements in AI are not inferior. On the patient side, the intelligent agent matrix has connected over 100000 doctors providing services, with nearly 1000 doctors participating in product co construction and a cumulative user base of over 15 million. In terms of business targeting hospital doctors and pharmaceutical companies, Baidu Health has transformed its Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) from hospital rating support version 1.0 to version 3.0. CDSS products have cumulatively covered over 800 hospitals.
In terms of commercialization, Baidu Health hopes to empower pharmaceutical companies and become a link between patients and pharmaceutical companies. According to official data from Baidu Health, Baidu Health has covered over 2000 patient recruitment projects, with more than 400000 registered patients, helping over 400 companies with new drug projects involving multiple diseases such as tumors, autoimmune diseases, and infectious diseases. It has become one of the largest clinical trial recruitment platforms in the country.
However, it is an undeniable fact in the industry that AI healthcare is difficult to make money. In an interview with Interface News, He Mingke stated that it seems that there is no application that can solve all problems, not only in the medical and health industry, but also in the entire industry. Nowadays, all big model applications are focused on search, such as ChatGPT which makes search very strong. However, apart from that, no one has found a 'killer app' that can bring value in some narrow scenarios