In Q2 2026, Baidu online marketing revenue fell 19% YoY to RMB13.1bn, after falling 22% in Q1.
And AI-native ads doesn’t seem impressive.
Meanwhile Google Search & Other revenue grew 17% YoY to $63.3bn in 2q26.
Google search revenue didn’t feel much impact from growing usage of chat AI.
One difference, probably unrelated to AI-era, is that content sits inside giant closed ecosystems, much of which Baidu either can’t index properly or isn’t the natural starting point for.
Consumers can go directly to vertical apps. This is especially true when mobile is more important than web in China.
Baidu is simply not the end of a discovery journal, while Google still is.
Even if you chat with AI, you might still go to Google to do final checks or to look for places to do the transaction.
Another issue is that Google AI Overview seems more successful in monetization.
Baidu management says it is “deliberately holding back” AI-search monetization.
Google previously disclosed that queries showing AI Overviews monetized at approximately the same rate as traditional Search, and in Q2’26 said it continued to be encouraged by AI Overview monetization even as it expanded into more commercial queries.