Chinese search engine giant Baidu said that Haijian He has been appointed as chief financial officer of the company, effective immediately.
The appointment came as the Chinese search engine announced a series of leadership changes. Junjie He will step down as interim CFO and take on the role of senior vice president, overseeing human resources and administrative functions.
Shanshan Cui will serve as secretary general to Baidu’s organizational culture committee, the company said.
Once a dominant player in China’s tech sector, Baidu has struggled in recent years to identify new growth drivers. Slowing demand for online advertising, traditionally the company’s core business, has pushed Baidu into emerging areas such as artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.
Its flagship AI product, the Ernie chatbot, attracted attention at launch but now faces mounting competition from startup rivals like DeepSeek as well as established tech giants such Alibaba Group and ByteDance.
As of April, Ernie Bot ranked eighth in monthly active users among Chinese chatbots, according to aicpb, a site that tracks AI products.
Baidu has also been pushing to expand its major businesses overseas this year, including an effort to enter Southeast Asia’s robotaxi market, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.
REUTERS/Christopher Ojilere