Baidu World 2026 Scheduled for November 12: Spotlighting the New Theme of 'Intelligent Organizations'

Baidu officially announced on October 12 that Baidu World 2026 will be held on November 12 at the National Convention Center Phase II in Beijing, with ticket sales now open on the event's official website. This year's conference carries the theme "The Next Act: Intelligent Organizations" — a clear signal that AI's application frontier is expanding beyond individual productivity tools toward organization-level transformation.

A Ten-Year Echo in the "Next Act" Theme

A decade ago, Robin Li delivered a defining prediction at Baidu World 2016: "The next act of the internet is artificial intelligence." At a time when the mobile internet boom was plateauing, Baidu was among the first to pivot its strategic focus to AI — a call that history has since validated.

Ten years later, the theme "The Next Act: Intelligent Organizations" forms a deliberate callback to that moment. The difference this time is that the question is no longer whether the technology works, but how AI can be genuinely embedded into the operating logic of organizations. Since last year's Baidu World, Robin Li has repeatedly addressed AI's role within organizations — moving from companies internalizing AI capabilities to organizations evolving on their own. How he will further articulate the relationship between AI and organizational evolution at this year's conference is among the most closely watched storylines.

From "the next act of the internet is AI" to "the next act of AI is intelligent organizations," this narrative arc reflects a recurring pattern in the tech industry: once a technology matures, real value is typically unlocked through organizational transformation, not through stacking point solutions.

Conference Scale and Content Framework

According to official information, Baidu World 2026 will feature 1 main forum, 12 breakout sessions, 30+ AI open courses, and a 6,000-square-meter AI exhibition area — a configuration that cements the event's standing as Baidu's most significant annual showcase for technology and product announcements.

The 12 breakout sessions will revolve around "AI-driven organizational leaps," covering topics such as organizational evolution, AI-powered workplaces, scaling enterprise AI agents, multi-scenario digital human applications, as well as forward-looking themes like RSI, embodied intelligence, and AI4S. The lineup is clearly intentional — pairing near-term deployment topics (agent scaling, AI in the workplace) with longer-horizon technology exploration (embodied intelligence, scientific AI).

The 30+ AI open courses will invite industry practitioners to share practical insights and real-world experience, leaning toward hands-on application. The 6,000-square-meter AI exhibition area will showcase Baidu's full-stack "Chip–Cloud–Model–Agent" AI capabilities and present scenario-based demonstrations of intelligent organization practices. This end-to-end stack, from chip to application layer, is central to how Baidu differentiates itself from single-model vendors.

Terminology Note: RSI (Responsible Scaling Intelligence) is an emerging AI safety governance framework that emphasizes building safety evaluation and control mechanisms that keep pace with rapid growth in model capabilities. Embodied Intelligence refers to combining AI perception and decision-making with physical systems (such as robots), enabling action in the real physical world. AI4S (AI for Science) describes the use of large AI models to accelerate scientific research, spanning areas like protein structure prediction, new material discovery, and meteorological simulation. The inclusion of all three topics in the breakout agenda suggests that Baidu is seeking to map out a complete picture under the "intelligent organizations" narrative — from current enterprise deployment to the cutting edge of future technology — rather than focusing narrowly on near-term monetization.

From Internal Practice to External Enablement

Notably, Baidu isn't simply pitching a concept — it has already validated the approach internally. In September this year, Baidu's top award went to two teams: the dodo team, which focused on integrating AI capabilities into internal enterprise workflows, and the Kunlun Chip Tianchi team, which provides AI computing infrastructure for enterprises. These two teams address the application layer and the underlying technology layer, respectively — covering both ends of the "intelligent organization" spectrum.

In the specific arena of AI-powered workplaces, Baidu has assembled a product portfolio that includes Baidu Dazi, Kuku AI, and Miaoда. The numbers are striking: Baidu Dazi's monthly active users (MAU) grew 1,063.79% month-over-month in July, topping the growth charts, with user volume increasing ninefold month-over-month in September. Kuku AI's MAU has surpassed 25 million, ranking first in the AI workplace category.

These figures show that "intelligent organizations" is not merely a conference theme for Baidu — it's a business direction backed by real products and user data. The approach of validating internally and in the market before extending capabilities outward is considerably more convincing than launching concepts alone.

Terminology Note: "Chip–Cloud–Model–Agent" (芯-云-模-体) is Baidu's self-described AI strategy framework, corresponding to four layers: Chip (Kunlun AI chips, providing the compute foundation), Cloud (Baidu AI Cloud, offering training and inference infrastructure), Model (the ERNIE large model series, delivering general and domain-specific intelligence), and Agent (AI agents and end-user application products). This full-stack structure sets Baidu apart from vendors that offer only a single model API, enabling — in theory — coordinated optimization across compute costs, model fine-tuning, and application deployment. For enterprise customers looking to implement "intelligent organizations," a full-stack vendor can reduce integration friction across multiple providers, though it also means deeper dependency on a single vendor's ecosystem.

Two Decades as an Industry Bellwether

Since its inaugural edition in 2006, Baidu World has been held continuously for 20 years, having unveiled milestone developments over that span — from Box Computing and deep learning platforms to autonomous driving, large language models, and AI agents — each leaving a lasting mark on the industry. In many ways, the conference has consistently served as a window into the direction of both Baidu and China's broader AI sector.

This year's focus on "intelligent organizations" reflects a larger trend: AI applications are moving beyond individual productivity enhancement toward full-scale organizational adoption. As companies begin using AI to reshape their operational dynamics and drive continuous structural evolution, the competitive dimension shifts as well — the question is no longer who has adopted AI tools, but whose organization can keep up with the efficiency leaps AI enables.

For enterprises and developers, the product announcements and real-world intelligent organization case studies presented at the conference will offer concrete transformation benchmarks worth studying. Whether Baidu World 2026 once again sets the direction for the industry will become clear on November 12.