From “Search Box” to “AI Q&A”: A Market Position Disruption

By 2025, generative AI platforms (such as DeepSeek, DouBao, and Kimi) have surpassed 300 million monthly active users. In 50% of user queries, answers are now directly generated by AI without requiring clicks on traditional search results.

Supporting Data: Gartner reports predict that traditional search traffic will be cut in half by 2026, with 79% of users relying on generative AI for information. Baidu’s financial reports reveal that its Q1 2025 search advertising revenue declined by 12% year-over-year—marking its first negative growth.

Expert Perspective: Analysts from InterDing Technology point out that Baidu’s core dilemma stems from “zero-click searches” becoming mainstream—users now obtain information directly from AI-generated answer summaries. Brands not referenced by AI effectively lose all exposure opportunities.

Baidu’s Strategic Counteroffensive: From “Passive Adaptation” to “Active Definition”

To counter the GEO impact, Baidu is accelerating its generative AI technology deployment:

Technical Upgrades: The “Wenxin Large Model 4.0” launched in 2024 enhances semantic understanding capabilities. However, third-party evaluations indicate that the authoritativeness of its generated answers still lags behind vertical domain AI platforms like DeepSeek.

Ecosystem Reconstruction: Baidu has partnered with Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, and other platforms to build a “content-Q&A-recommendation” closed loop, attempting to prevent traffic loss through its ecosystem. Yet the market penetration rate of its AI assistant “DuXiaoxiao” remains only 1/3 that of ChatGPT.

Industry Warning: The “New Battlefield” of GEO Optimization

Case Analysis: A German sensor manufacturer optimized its technical documentation for Q&A modules and jointly published a white paper with TÜV, increasing its citation rate in ChatGPT by 65%.

Strategic Recommendations: Shanghai Xinsou Technology proposes a “GEO+Large Model” dual-engine model that connects industry authoritative data through knowledge graphs, dynamically adapting to different AI platforms’ content requirements.

Conclusion

Baidu’s anxiety reflects a paradigm revolution in the search industry—future competition for traffic entry points will no longer be about keyword rankings, but about who can be “trusted” and recommended by AI.