Baidu’s shift towards AI-led search changes the visibility challenge for international B2B companies. Ranking still matters—but increasingly, brands also need to be understood, trusted and selected as a source.
For years, improving visibility on Baidu followed a familiar model: build a Chinese-language website, target the right keywords and earn a strong position in the search results.
That work remains important. But the result a buyer sees is changing.
Baidu is increasingly placing AI across its products and describes its wider strategy as a transition from an “internet-centric” business to an “AI-first” one. In its Q2 2026 results, the company reported that AI-powered businesses generated half of Baidu General Business revenue. At the same time, revenue from traditional online marketing services was down 19% year on year.
This does not mean conventional search is disappearing. It does mean that discovery is becoming less dependent on a user opening and comparing a list of links. Increasingly, an AI system can retrieve information, interpret it and present a consolidated answer.
From being indexed to being selected
The distinction matters for B2B companies.
A page can be indexed by Baidu without becoming part of an AI-generated answer. A company may even appear in the material retrieved by an AI system but still not be mentioned in the final response.
A recent study, What Do Chinese-Language Generative Search Engines Cite and Surface?, examined 614 queries and more than 160,000 citation-level records across four mainstream Chinese-language platforms. Only 8.3% of brands found in the retrieved citation pool were ultimately surfaced in generated answers.
The researchers found that content relevance, repeated appearance across sources and the role a brand played in the source material all influenced whether it was selected. They also found meaningful differences between the web and app versions of the same platforms.
In practical terms, being indexed is not the same as being understood—and being understood is not the same as being cited.
Users are becoming comfortable with agent-led answers
The growth of AI agents offers another indication of changing behaviour.
Baidu’s Dazi office agent reached 6.74 million desktop monthly active users in July 2026, an increase of 1,063.79% month on month, according to China AI Weekly, citing AICPB data.
Dazi is an office agent, not Baidu Search, so its user figures should not be treated as search-market data. Its rapid adoption is nevertheless relevant: millions of users are becoming accustomed to asking an AI to assemble information and complete tasks rather than navigating between sources themselves.
For a technical buyer, procurement manager or distributor, the journey may increasingly begin with a detailed question rather than a short keyword. The AI layer then decides which companies, claims and sources deserve a place in the answer.
What B2B brands should do now
International companies do not need to abandon SEO for a new acronym. They need to make their existing China-market information more consistent, verifiable and useful.
Five practical priorities stand out:
- Establish one consistent Chinese identity. Use the same approved Chinese company name, product names, description and contact details across the website, WeChat and third-party profiles.
- Answer real buyer questions. Publish clear Chinese-language pages covering applications, specifications, certifications, service scope and common technical or commercial questions.
- Make evidence easy to extract. Use descriptive headings, concise factual statements, structured lists and clearly dated information instead of vague promotional language.
- Build credible corroboration. A corporate website should not be the only place where a company’s expertise and claims appear. Relevant industry publications, associations, partner sites and Baidu-native properties can provide valuable confirmation.
- Test discovery across interfaces. Search for the questions a Chinese buyer would genuinely ask. Check conventional results and AI-led answers on both web and app experiences, because the sources surfaced may differ.
As Search Engine Land’s review of China’s search ecosystem argues, Baidu still matters for B2B demand, but a corporate website is no longer the sole focus of discovery. Visibility increasingly depends on the wider information ecosystem around the business.
Findable now means verifiable
Traditional Baidu SEO remains the foundation: pages must still be accessible, relevant and properly indexed. The change is that businesses also need to create a coherent body of Chinese-language evidence that an AI system can cross-reference and confidently reuse.
For companies entering or expanding in China, this has implications beyond search. A maintained WeChat presence, consistent local profiles and authoritative Chinese content all help buyers—and the systems assisting them—verify that a business is credible, active and relevant to the market.
Ranking can show that a company exists. Being cited can place it inside the answer.