On November 21st, Baidu released its third quarter financial report. According to financial report data, the revenue for the third quarter reached 34.447 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to Baidu (non GAAP) reached 7.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23%. Both revenue and profit exceeded market expectations.
Robin Lee, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, said that, "Against the background of emerging opportunities of generative AI and basic models, Baidu has constantly strengthened its technology and improved its products, especially the launch of Wenxin Big Model 4.0, which is the most powerful basic model of Baidu. We have also used the ability of Wenxin Big Model and ERNIE Bot to reconstruct consumer level and enterprise level products and their own operations, and constantly improve efficiency while bringing AI native experience."
He pointed out, "At the same time, we have fully opened the Wenxin big model API to cloud customers, helping them develop AI native applications and solutions. Baidu adheres to the business and product strategy with AI as the core, laying the foundation for the revenue maintenance and profit expansion of Wenxin big model and ERNIE Bot ecology in the coming years."
Baidu's CFO Luo Rong said, "Baidu's core has maintained a stable profit margin this quarter, and our continuous investment in artificial intelligence has laid the foundation for technology and product innovation. In the future, we will continue to prioritize investment in artificial intelligence, especially generative AI and basic models. Baidu will unwaveringly focus on efficiency and strategic resource allocation
According to the financial report, Baidu's core revenue in this quarter was 26.6 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to Baidu's core (non GAAP) reached 7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21%; Baidu's core online marketing revenue increased to 19.7 billion yuan. Meanwhile, the cumulative service volume of Radish Run has increased to 4.1 million orders. It is reported that the small shipment volume in the second quarter ranked first in China's smart screens and smart speakers.
After ERNIE Bot was opened to the whole society, Wenxin Big Model 4.0 was released in October. Users can experience the version of ERNIE Bot through Wenxin Yiyan, and enterprises can call the API of Wenxin 4.0 through Baidu AI Cloud Qianfan Big Model Platform. At present, ERNIE Bot has 70 million users, covering 4300 scenarios.
ERNIE Bot and Wenxin Grand Model are opening up new development opportunities for Baidu. Recently, the "ERNIE Bot Professional Edition" based on Wenxin Grand Model 4.0 has been launched, which is open to charging for professional needs, which also distinguishes Wenxin Grand Model from other models in the market. Compared to the free basic version, the professional version has stronger modeling and image generation capabilities.
At the same time, the API call volume of the Wenxin Big Model is increasing exponentially. Not long ago, Robin Lee said in his speech that the adjustment amount of Wenxin model "exceeds the sum of other 200 models". According to reports, there are over 10000 companies that use big model capabilities on Baidu Qianfan's big model platform every month.
Recently, the data indicators of Baidu's many AI native applications have grown significantly. Based on ERNIE Bot's big model and Wenxin Yiyan's overall restructuring of its products, Baidu launched Baidu New Search, Baidu New Library, Baidu Online Disk "Cloud Yiduo", Baidu Maps, Baidu GBI and many other AI native applications.
The restructured AI native application has achieved significant growth in user volume: on Baidu App, 640000 creators have used AI assisted creative tools to produce 14 million pieces of content, receiving 30 billion views; After the launch of Baidu's online drive "Yunyiduo", it has become the world's first "personal cloud intelligent assistant" with a user base of 20 million; Baidu Wenku's AI new features have accumulated over 30 million users.
Originating from the rapidly growing demand for AI native applications, Baidu AI Cloud provides customers with a full stack service solution covering five major needs, including AI computing power, large model API calls, large model secondary development, AI native application development tools and AI native application stores.
At present, Baidu AI Cloud Qianfan large model platform services more than 20000 enterprises, covering nearly 500 scenes. For example, TAL completed the training and development of the big model based on Baidu AI Cloud, significantly improving the effect of the big model; Facewall Technology completed the training and optimization of multiple large models on Baidu AI Cloud, guaranteed the continuity of model training, and achieved good model convergence effect.
At the same time, in promoting the prosperity of the AI native application ecosystem, plugins are of great significance, being the AI native application with the lowest threshold and the easiest to get started. Since the launch of the Lingjing Matrix plugin platform in September this year, 27000 developers have applied to settle in, including partners such as Ctrip, CITIC Publishing Group, and China Judicial Big Data Research Institute.
Upstream News Reporter Yang Xinhua