Baidu Unveils AI Video Powerhouse "MuseSteamer" and Radically Upgrades Its Search Engine

BEIJING – July 2, 2025 – In a significant move to reclaim its position at the forefront of China's competitive artificial intelligence race, tech giant Baidu Inc. has launched a powerful new AI-driven video generator for businesses and announced a complete overhaul of its flagship search product.

The dual announcements, made on Wednesday, signal a strategic pivot for the company as it faces intense pressure from agile rivals like ByteDance and Tencent, whose AI chatbots have been capturing user attention and market share.

MuseSteamer: A Professional-Grade AI Video Tool

The centerpiece of Baidu's announcement is MuseSteamer, an advanced image-to-video model. Unlike many consumer-focused AI video tools, Baidu is targeting MuseSteamer squarely at enterprise and business clients, offering them a tool to create high-quality, short-form video content for marketing, training, and advertising without the need for expensive production resources.

MuseSteamer is capable of generating coherent videos up to 10 seconds long from a single image or text prompt. The model will be available in three tiers to suit different business needs and computational budgets:

Turbo: For the highest speed and priority access.
Pro: A balanced option for most business use cases.
Lite: A cost-effective model for simpler video generation tasks.

This launch places Baidu directly in competition with global heavyweights like OpenAI, which demonstrated its stunning "Sora" text-to-video model earlier this year, and aligns it with Chinese peers ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba, who have all unveiled similar generative video technologies.

Revolutionizing the Core: The New Baidu Search

Recognizing that the very nature of information retrieval is changing, Baidu has also undertaken its most significant search engine redesign in years. The upgrades are a direct response to the rise of AI chatbots that provide direct answers, challenging the traditional list-of-links model.

Key new features include:

A Redesigned Search Box: Engineered to accept much longer, more conversational queries, mimicking how people naturally ask questions.
Multi-Modal Search: Deeply integrated support for voice commands and image-based searches, allowing users to search by speaking or uploading a photo.
AI-Powered Results: The platform now uses Baidu's Ernie AI model to synthesize information and display more targeted, summarized content directly on the results page, reducing the need to click through to other sites.

Analysis: A Strategic Gambit in a Crowded Market

Baidu's focused approach with MuseSteamer is telling. By targeting businesses first, it avoids the high costs and scrutiny of a massive consumer rollout and immediately creates a revenue stream. This B2B model allows them to refine the technology with professional users before potentially launching a consumer-facing app down the line.

The search overhaul is arguably even more critical. As platforms like ByteDance's Doubao and Tencent's Yuanbao become go-to destinations for answers, especially among younger users, Baidu's very identity as the "Google of China" is under threat. These enhancements are a necessary evolution to make its search product more intuitive, intelligent, and competitive in the age of generative AI.

The coming months will show if this two-pronged strategy is enough for Baidu to solidify its status as a leading AI innovator and defend its core search business from an increasingly formidable pack of challengers.