(Yicai Global) Jan. 22 -- Baidu Inc. took a walloping when the mobile Internet era arrived. The advent of the age of artificial intelligence has, by contrast, made it feel very comfortable, however, because "we positioned ourselves in AI technology and its market six or seven years ago," said Robin Li, founder of the Chinese internet behemoth.

"This time has finally come, and our day is finally dawning," he said. Baidu failed to stake out an early position on the mobile internet, so when that time arrived, "We took a bit of a hit." Because many others had already deployed there, "It was very bad for Baidu, so the company at that time was a little nervous," Li admitted frankly at the GeekPark 2018 Innovation Festival in Beijing yesterday.

Compared with the internet era, the era of AI changed both the supply side and the consumer side, and so Baidu can do a lot more than before, Li believes. "Fortunately, we have prepared a lot for this," he said.

In contrast to the other two major internet giants in China -- the trio is known in China by the acronym BAT -- Tencent Holdings Ltd. [HK:0700] and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA], Baidu has relatively underperformed in recent years and its market capitalization lags far behind theirs, which exceeded USD500 billion and USD470 billion, respectively, while that of Baidu was about USD90 billion.

Betting on AI technology was considered the key to Baidu's transformation in the new situation, and some even think Baidu is desperate to do so. However, Li never personally uttered the motto 'All in AI,' "because I'm more inclined to leave some room. I believe in AI, but I don't want to absolutely do one thing, believing that all of Baidu's resources are to do self-driving vehicles and DuerOS [a conversational AI system Baidu developed]."

Most of Baidu's resources will still be devoted to its core businesses, including its search engine and information flow, but all the technologies behind them are AI, Li said. "AI is everywhere, and propels all of Baidu's businesses forward, rather than just promoting a new business."

Baidu released open platforms last year like Apollo, an open software platform for its partners to develop their own Baidu-developed autonomous driving systems and DuerOS in the AI field. This also aroused concern among start-ups that have accumulated related technology.

Opening is Baidu's long-term strategy, Li said. Opening platforms avoids a lot of repetitive work. "Even if we don't do it, others will eventually do the repetitive work; we just speed up the process."

Social media such as WeChat, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo or MicroBlog are all information flows organized by social networks, while the information flows of Baidu are mainly organized per algorithms, Li noted.

The efficiency of distribution by algorithm is higher, but its loyalty rate is lower than that of social media. Therefore, the best distribution of information flow is a combination of the two, and in future distribution by algorithm may dominate, Li said. However, the public still needs time to accept algorithmic-driven distribution of information flows, he admitted.

The annualized revenue of Baidu's information flow business for last year is projected at over USD1 billion, based on the firm's third-quarter results.

'Information flow advertisements' are those that emerge dynamically among social media user circles of friends. The characteristics of distribution of information flow ads are personalized ones that rely on a massive user data and information flow ecosystem, which can accurately capture user preferences and show targeted ads based on these.