Baidu Create 2026: CEO says AI focus is moving from models to AI agents, foresees rise of super individuals

Every Wednesday and Friday, TechNode’s Briefing newsletter delivers a roundup of the most important news in China tech, straight to your inbox. Your support helps TechNode continue to provide credible, on-the-ground journalism and industry insights about the Chinese tech industry. On Wednesday, the Create 2026 Baidu AI Developer Conference, themed Agents at Scale, opened in Beijing. During the opening ceremony, Robin Li, founder of Baidu, delivered a keynote speech centered on self-evolution, which he described as a defining theme of the AI era. The company also unveiled several AI products focused on intelligent agents and enterprise applications. Robin Li outlined the shift in AI from large model competition to AI agent competition, noting that intelligent agents are becoming the central focus of the next phase of the AI industry. Li said that over the past few years, the key breakthroughs in the AI industry have largely come from improvements in foundation model capabilities. However, the logic behind breakout AI products has shifted this year. “For the first time, what really made AI go viral was not the model, but the application,” he said.

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