Do we like them?

Do we like Baidu?

Chinese search engine, AI cloud and Ernie models, and Apollo Go robotaxis; based in Beijing.

Our score: 4 out of 10. Not one we'd back with our money. Its robotaxis are expanding fast but have had safety failures, its past privacy lapses were serious, and its core ad business is shrinking. It also operates under state censorship rules.

Baidu was started by Robin Li in a Beijing hotel room 25 years ago, and he has been CEO since 2004. It is China's biggest search-engine operator. It is now pushing hard to become an AI-first company, with its Ernie models and a big cloud business.

The robotaxi arm, Apollo Go, is the flashy bit. Baidu said it passed 250,000 fully driverless rides a week in late 2025 and has told people it has had no major injury accident. The reality has been bumpier, though. In March 2026 a system failure left around 100 cars stopped in traffic in Wuhan.

Chinese regulators paused the Wuhan service for audits after that failure, and it only restarted about a month later. Reuters also reported a robotaxi falling into a construction pit in Chongqing with a passenger inside. The passenger wasn't hurt, and Reuters said it didn't know how the car got there.

On privacy, Citizen Lab's 2016 report found Baidu's browser sent location, search terms and device IDs without proper encryption. Baidu fixed some of it after being told. Baidu also operates under Chinese rules on censorship and handing over data, which is a big red flag for many people.

The business is wobbling too. Bloomberg reported three straight quarters of falling sales by February 2026, and law firms are now advertising a shareholder class action over its AI claims. Those are allegations only. AI cloud is growing fast, but we'd give it a middling-to-low score.