Baidu Adds Openclaw AI To Search App For 700 Million Users Ahead Of Lunar New Year

Posted by By Dan Taylor 3 Min Read

Baidu has added the artificial intelligence tool OpenClaw to its main search app, giving direct access to around 700 million monthly active users.

The move comes just days before China’s Lunar New Year holiday, as major tech companies compete to attract new AI users and boost engagement.

OpenClaw Now Available Inside Baidu App

Starting Friday, users who opt in can message OpenClaw directly within Baidu’s main smartphone app.

The AI agent can help complete tasks such as scheduling, organizing files, and writing code. Users can interact with it much like they would in a chat app.

Previously, the Austrian-developed open-sourced AI agent was only accessible through chat-based platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram.

Chinese companies including Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu had already enabled users to run OpenClaw on their cloud systems. The new integration brings the tool directly into Baidu’s widely used search app.

Baidu, best known for its search engine, also operates cloud, mapping, and other internet-based services.

AI Competition Heats Up Before Holiday

The timing of the rollout is important. Chinese internet giants are racing to gain new users and generate returns from their AI investments ahead of the busy Lunar New Year period.

Baidu is also expanding OpenClaw’s capabilities to its e-commerce operations and other services.

Alibaba has taken similar steps with its AI chatbot Qwen. The company integrated Qwen into its e-commerce platforms, including Taobao and travel site Fliggy.

Alibaba said it received more than 120 million consumer orders through the app in the six days through Feb. 11.

Qwen allows users to compare personalized product recommendations and complete payment through Alipay without leaving the chatbot. Before this update, users had to exit the AI tool and move across different platforms to finish transactions.

Security Concerns Around AI Agents

While AI agents such as OpenClaw are growing in popularity, there are also concerns about security.

Cybersecurity firms including CrowdStrike have warned users about giving OpenClaw unrestricted access to enterprise systems.

As competition intensifies, companies are balancing rapid AI deployment with potential cybersecurity risks. The coming weeks may show how strongly users adopt these new integrated AI features during one of China’s busiest holiday seasons.

Sources: CNBC, Bloomberg, Baidu, Alibaba, CrowdStrike.

 

Dan Taylor
View More Posts
Dan Taylor is the founder and editor of International Search Insights (ISI), the publication behind ReadIsi, and a Partner and Head of Innovation (Search & AI) at SALT.agency. He has worked in search for more than a decade, in-house and agency-side, and is regarded as one of the West’s leading voices on search engines beyond Google, including Yandex, Baidu, Naver and Cốc Cốc. On ReadIsi, Dan covers the engines and AI answer platforms that English-language coverage tends to miss: Baidu and ERNIE, Yandex and Alice AI, Naver, Cốc Cốc, Shenma, Sogou, WeChat and Weibo search, plus DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. He also keeps dated records of documented changes, such as the Yandex, Baidu and Naver algorithm update histories and the DeepSeek, ERNIE and Qwen model update histories. His approach is to take learnings from global search engines and apply logic with a high evidence threshold. A claim needs a source, patterns seen in one market are treated as a hypothesis until they are checked in another, and where the evidence is thin he says so. For brands, that means advice built on what can be shown, with measurement that separates being cited from being chosen. Dan is credited with coining the term “edge SEO” and won the inaugural TechSEO Boost research competition in 2018 for his work on CDN and edge changes for SEO. In 2026 he was credited with coining “Infinite Tail” to describe how keyword research is changing with AI search. He is the author of AI Search Marketing For The Travel Sector, writes for Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land and Travel Marketing Guy, and has advised technology, SaaS, travel and enterprise ecommerce brands, including Cloudflare, GitLab and Airbnb. He has given multiple talks and panels at the International Search Summit in Barcelona, and has also spoken at Optimization Moscow, brightonSEO, Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Asia in Bangkok, Athens SEO and the Asia SEO Virtual Summit 2026, where his talk looked at how Baidu, Naver, DeepSeek, Tencent, Cốc Cốc and Yandex built their own AI answers.
Founder & Editor