A Bet on the Next Era: Robin Li's Lonely 'All-in-AI' Self-Revolution

Prologue: The "Dinosaur" of the Mobile Era

In 2013, Baidu still seemed powerful on the surface, but a deep-seated anxiety had begun to spread within the giant.

The wave of the mobile internet was disrupting the entire industry landscape with unprecedented speed and force. The way people obtained information shifted from "active search" on PCs to "passive feeding" on mobile devices. Super apps, like isolated islands, enclosed users and data within their own ecosystems.

Baidu's traditional "traffic portal" model was fundamentally shaken for the first time.

To the outside world, Baidu looked like a "dinosaur" turning slowly, having missed social media and e-commerce, and now seemingly about to miss the entire mobile era. The company's stock price remained sluggish, and Wall Street analysts continuously downgraded its rating.

"Baidu is dead"—such statements were common in the tech media at the time.

Under immense pressure from both inside and outside the company, everyone expected Robin Li to find a breakthrough, as he had done every time in the past, and lead Baidu out of the fog. Many suggested he should vigorously develop O2O or follow the example of Toutiao to create a news feed.

However, the answer Robin Li gave surprised everyone. He chose the path that seemed the most distant and uncertain at the time—Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Act I: One Man's "War"

"Baidu will no longer be an internet company, but an AI company."

When Robin Li first proposed this new positioning within the company, he was met with huge resistance and confusion.

To many business leaders, AI was too "abstract" a concept. It required years, even a decade, of continuous investment, but in the short term, there was no clear path to commercialization.

"Robin, our urgent priority now is to stabilize our mobile search market share and increase our news feed revenue, not to mess with things that only scientists understand!" one executive almost slammed the table as he voiced his opposition in a meeting.

Wall Street's reaction was more direct. When Baidu announced the establishment of the Institute of Deep Learning (IDL) and spent a fortune poaching top AI scientists like Andrew Ng from Silicon Valley, the company's stock price plummeted.

Investors voted with their feet, expressing their distrust in this "gamble."

That period was the most "lonely" time for Robin Li since he started his business. He had to fight against widespread skepticism from the outside world while also convincing his core team internally.

It was almost his "war," fought alone.

The reason he was so resolute was that he saw the "endgame" of search engines more profoundly than anyone else. He believed that the mobile internet was just a transitional phase, and the only thing that could fundamentally disrupt the efficiency of information distribution was artificial intelligence.

"Technology is always Baidu's core belief," he repeatedly stressed to his team. "The reason we won in the past is that we had the leading search technology in the PC era. If we want to win in the future, we must have the leading AI technology in the next era."

Act II: From "Search" to "Everything"

After overcoming all objections, Robin Li began to channel all of Baidu's resources into the field of AI in an almost "obsessive" way.

He personally took charge of the AI strategy and, with unprecedented intensity, pushed the company's initiatives in autonomous driving (Apollo project), smart voice (DuerOS), AI chips (Kunlun), and deep learning frameworks (PaddlePaddle).

It was a grand-scale and extremely expensive "arms race." For several years, Baidu's R&D investment consistently remained above 15% of its total revenue, a ratio that even surpassed many technology giants in Silicon Valley.

This investment, regardless of cost, dragged down the company's financial reports in the short term, but it also built the deepest technological moat for Baidu in the AI era.

Robin Li's vision had long since gone beyond the "search box." He saw AI as an "infrastructure" that could empower thousands of industries. The future he dreamed of was one where users could not only find information through Baidu but also use Baidu's AI to hail a cab, order food, and control home appliances...

AI elevated Baidu's mission from "connecting people and information" to "connecting everything."

Epilogue: The "Rose" of Time

Time ultimately proved Robin Li's foresight.

When the launch of ChatGPT ignited the global AI wave in 2023, people were surprised to find that Baidu, once mocked for being "a step behind," had been quietly cultivating this field for nearly a decade.

It had the largest AI developer community in China, the leading deep learning framework, and the strength to compete on the same stage with global giants in both technology and products.

Looking back at the difficult transition in 2013, one has to admire Robin Li's strategic resolve as an entrepreneur and his profound insight into technological trends.

In a restless era where everyone was chasing "the next big thing," he chose to sit down and chew on the toughest "bone," to fight the longest "war."

The final outcome of this "All-in-AI" gamble may not yet be decided. But this choice by Robin Li was undoubtedly the most thrilling and meaningful "self-revolution" for Baidu after it entered its "middle age."

It tells us that a great company must not only remain clear-headed in good times but also, in adversity, dare to make the loneliest and heaviest bet on the future.