Meet DAA： A New Metric Built for Results in The Agent Era
Dear friends， welcome to May edition of AI Pulse. A lot happened at Baidu Create 2026 （our annual developer conference） this month - new agents， new infrastructure， new product launches. But the idea we keep coming back to is one our CEO， Robin， put on the table during his keynote： DAA， Daily Active Agents. A new way of measuring the value AI is delivering. In this issue， we'll take a deep dive into what DAA is and why it matters to the industry.
Token consumption is at record highs and climbing. According to Goldman Sachs Research， agentic AI is expected to drive a 24-fold increase in token consumption by 2030. It has become one of the industry's most-watched indicators of AI scale and adoption.
But tokens only tell half the story. They measure input - how much the machine consumed， how hard it worked. The other half of the equation - what actually got produced， what tasks were completed - remains uncounted.
At Baidu Create 2026， Robin gave his answer about that missing half： DAA， or Daily Active Agents. It shifts the question from "how much was consumed？" to "how many agents are actively working and delivering results？"
The Agent Era Has Arrived - and It Needs a Different Scoreboard
Something has shifted in the past year. AI is no longer sitting inside a chat window waiting to be asked questions. It is out in the world， completing tasks， making decisions， and running operations. Agents are handling customer inquiries， optimizing port logistics， generating marketing content， scheduling factory floors - autonomously， continuously， and at scale.
This is a different kind of AI activity from anything we've measured before. And it requires a different kind of metric to capture it.
There are two metrics commonly used in the AI industry measure success today： DAU and token consumption. Both offer a starting point， but they weren't built for what AI is becoming.
Meet DAA： A New Metric Built for Results in The Agent Era
Dear friends， welcome to May edition of AI Pulse. A lot happened at Baidu Create 2026 （our annual developer conference） this month - new agents， new infrastructure， new product launches. But the idea we keep coming back to is one our CEO， Robin， put on the table during his keynote： DAA， Daily Active Agents. A new way of measuring the value AI is delivering. In this issue， we'll take a deep dive into what DAA is and why it matters to the industry.
Token consumption is at record highs and climbing. According to Goldman Sachs Research， agentic AI is expected to drive a 24-fold increase in token consumption by 2030. It has become one of the industry's most-watched indicators of AI scale and adoption.
DAU was built in the mobile internet era for the attention economy： whoever captures more of users' time wins. That logic worked for apps. It doesn't work for agents. An agent doesn't "open" anything. It either finishes the job or it doesn't.
And the numbers bear this out. According to Counterpoint Research's Q1 2026 data， some of the world's most-used AI products - measured by DAU - are not necessarily the ones generating the most revenue. User scale and business value have been quietly decoupling.
Token consumption gets closer， but it still isn't sufficient. Tokens measure input - how much compute was consumed， how hard the machine worked. Not what it produced. Gartner noted in a recent report that token consumption doesn't effectively reflect business value， efficiency， or sustainability. A system can burn through billions of tokens and deliver nothing of consequence.
As the industry matures， the gap between "how much the AI consumed" and "how much the AI delivered" becomes impossible to ignore. DAA closes that gap. It counts completed task loops - agents that took on work and actually finished it. It measures output， not activity. Delivery， not consumption.
Robin's prediction at Create 2026： global DAA could eventually exceed 10 billion. That number reflects something important about how agents scale differently from users. One person can run many agents simultaneously. Agents multiply capacity rather than compete for attention. The ceiling on what becomes countable is unlike anything DAU ever imagined.
Three Things Are Evolving at Once
To understand why DAA matters right now， it helps to look at what Robin described as an "AI evolution theory"： three simultaneous shifts， all pointing in the same direction.
The first shift is in the agents themselves. Early agents answered questions. Current agents complete tasks. The next wave does something more interesting - agents evolve， learning from every task they run without anyone intervening. In the mobile era， software improved on a schedule set by developers. In the agent era， improvement is continuous and self-directed.
The second shift is at the individual level. Someone working alongside a team of agents can now accomplish what used to require a full team of people. Builder， founder， creator， all in one person. The productive capacity of a single individual is being fundamentally re-scaled.
The third shift is organizational. The basic unit of a company is moving from "people coordinating with people" to what Robin calls "mixed human-agent formations." Agents are now embedded in the middle of a workflow instead of sitting at its edge， handling tasks that used to require dedicated headcount.
None of this happens in isolation. Smarter agents make individuals more capable. More capable individuals change how organizations are built. And as organizations restructure， the appetite for better agents grows. DAA is the number that captures all of this in motion - how much of this new productive capacity is actually being used， every single day.
The Agents Behind the Number： DuMate， Miaoda， Yijing， and Famou
A metric is only as meaningful as what it measures. At Create 2026， Baidu introduced a new generation of agents that are already putting DAA to work.
DuMate is Baidu's general-purpose agent. It doesn't answer questions one at a time - it runs tasks in parallel. Handle the inbox， analyze the sales data， draft the marketing copy. Simultaneously. In the international agent benchmark PinchBench， DuMate ranked first globally with a 93.3% task completion rate. It's also a single entry point： one prompt can route through Baidu Search， Miaoda coding agent， Famou agent， and many other capabilities， all at once.
Miaoda and MeDo are the coding agents. Over a million applications built. More than 10 million users. 81% of them with no coding background. Robin's framing was blunt： development costs are collapsing toward zero. "Disposable software" - built for a single purpose， a single moment - is now a real idea. Global developers can already access MeDo， Miaoda's international version， at medo.dev.
Baidu Yijing is a digital human platform integrated with live streaming， video production， and real-time interaction across 12 languages， with native-level lip-sync. As Robin put it： "A digital human is simply an agent you can see. Equipped with voice， facial expressions， and gestures， a digital human is more expressive and more trustworthy." This year， a Coca-Cola World Cup TVC was produced through Yijing - five characters， five city styles， all directed and edited by AI. Production time was cut by more than half.
Famou Agent 2.0 is the self-evolving decision agent. It works in operations environments： manufacturing scheduling， logistics planning， and process optimization. At one of the world's most automated terminals， Famou delivered a 10.21% efficiency improvement on top of an already optimized baseline. That translates to roughly one million additional standard containers processed per year.
Underneath all of this is Baidu's full-stack infrastructure - computing， cloud， models， and agents - rebuilt for the agent era. Robin was direct： "AI is not just a model. It is a system. It is a new generation of computing." Baidu AI Cloud has been repositioned as a full-stack AI cloud purpose-built for large-scale agent workloads.
From Consumption to Delivery： What DAA Is Really Asking the Industry to Do
As agents move from novelty to necessity - running in ports， factories， classrooms， and boardrooms - how we measure AI starts to matter a great deal. That's why DAA asks the harder questions： did the agent actually deliver？ Was the task completed？ Did something real happen as a result？
Metrics shape behavior. If you measure token consumption， you build for scale. If you measure daily active agents， you build for outcomes. That is what DAA is really challenging the industry to do - to reorient around a different definition of what success looks like.
Here's a quick look at what else has been happening at Baidu this month：
Q1 2026： AI Business Crosses a New Threshold
For the first time， Baidu Core AI-powered Business represented more than half of Baidu General Business revenue， bringing in over RMB 13.6 billion in Q1 2026， up 49% year-over-year.
Growth was broad-based across AI Cloud infrastructure， AI applications， and Apollo Go. Full report here.
Apollo Go： 3.2 Million Fully Driverless Rides Delivered in Q1
Apollo Go had a strong start to the year. In Q1 alone， we delivered 3.2 million fully driverless rides， with total rides continuing to grow at a triple-digit rate year-over-year. Over 22 million cumulative rides are provided to the public as of April 2026.
It also continued expanding internationally， as the global footprint reached 27 cities as of May 2026. The driverless operations are now running across multiple zones in Dubai， with the Apollo Go App launched in March， while it is on track to commence open-road testing in Switzerland， and to begin testing in London with Uber and Lyft soon.
Baidu AI Cloud Ranked No. 1 in Autonomous Driving R&D Solutions in China
According to IDC China's H2 2025 report， Baidu AI Cloud captured over a third of China's autonomous driving R&D solutions market， ranking first.
It now serves the top 15 auto brands by sales and the top 10 NEV companies in China， helping automakers move autonomous driving from R&D into mass production.
ERNIE 5.1 Is Now Available
We launched our latest foundation model that builds on ERNIE 5.0， with upgrades across search， reasoning， knowledge Q&A， creative writing， and agentic capabilities at around 6% of the pre-training cost of comparable models.
On LMArena's Search Leaderboard， ERNIE 5.1 scored 1，223 to rank 4th globally and 1st among Chinese models. Try it at ernie.baidu.com.
MSCI ESG Rating Upgraded to AA
We released our annual ESG report. Our MSCI ESG rating was raised to AA， and we were included in S&P Global's Sustainability Yearbook 2026.
From accessible mobility to closing the AI skills gap， we're working to make sure more people can share in the progress AI brings. Full report here.
Have a question about building with MeDo， or something you'd love us to cover next？ Leave a comment or DM us！
Until our next roundup， keep up with our latest AI developments and innovations by following us on LinkedIn and X.
But tokens only tell half the story. They measure input - how much the machine consumed， how hard it worked. The other half of the equation - what actually got produced， what tasks were completed - remains uncounted.
At Baidu Create 2026， Robin gave his answer about that missing half： DAA， or Daily Active Agents. It shifts the question from "how much was consumed？" to "how many agents are actively working and delivering results？"
The Agent Era Has Arrived - and It Needs a Different Scoreboard
Something has shifted in the past year. AI is no longer sitting inside a chat window waiting to be asked questions. It is out in the world， completing tasks， making decisions， and running operations. Agents are handling customer inquiries， optimizing port logistics， generating marketing content， scheduling factory floors - autonomously， continuously， and at scale.
This is a different kind of AI activity from anything we've measured before. And it requires a different kind of metric to capture it.
There are two metrics commonly used in the AI industry measure success today： DAU and token consumption. Both offer a starting point， but they weren't built for what AI is becoming.
DAU was built in the mobile internet era for the attention economy： whoever captures more of users' time wins. That logic worked for apps. It doesn't work for agents. An agent doesn't "open" anything. It either finishes the job or it doesn't.
And the numbers bear this out. According to Counterpoint Research's Q1 2026 data， some of the world's most-used AI products - measured by DAU - are not necessarily the ones generating the most revenue. User scale and business value have been quietly decoupling.
Token consumption gets closer， but it still isn't sufficient. Tokens measure input - how much compute was consumed， how hard the machine worked. Not what it produced. Gartner noted in a recent report that token consumption doesn't effectively reflect business value， efficiency， or sustainability. A system can burn through billions of tokens and deliver nothing of consequence.
As the industry matures， the gap between "how much the AI consumed" and "how much the AI delivered" becomes impossible to ignore. DAA closes that gap. It counts completed task loops - agents that took on work and actually finished it. It measures output， not activity. Delivery， not consumption.
Robin's prediction at Create 2026： global DAA could eventually exceed 10 billion. That number reflects something important about how agents scale differently from users. One person can run many agents simultaneously. Agents multiply capacity rather than compete for attention. The ceiling on what becomes countable is unlike anything DAU ever imagined.
Three Things Are Evolving at Once
To understand why DAA matters right now， it helps to look at what Robin described as an "AI evolution theory"： three simultaneous shifts， all pointing in the same direction.
The first shift is in the agents themselves. Early agents answered questions. Current agents complete tasks. The next wave does something more interesting - agents evolve， learning from every task they run without anyone intervening. In the mobile era， software improved on a schedule set by developers. In the agent era， improvement is continuous and self-directed.
The second shift is at the individual level. Someone working alongside a team of agents can now accomplish what used to require a full team of people. Builder， founder， creator， all in one person. The productive capacity of a single individual is being fundamentally re-scaled.
The third shift is organizational. The basic unit of a company is moving from "people coordinating with people" to what Robin calls "mixed human-agent formations." Agents are now embedded in the middle of a workflow instead of sitting at its edge， handling tasks that used to require dedicated headcount.
None of this happens in isolation. Smarter agents make individuals more capable. More capable individuals change how organizations are built. And as organizations restructure， the appetite for better agents grows. DAA is the number that captures all of this in motion - how much of this new productive capacity is actually being used， every single day.
The Agents Behind the Number： DuMate， Miaoda， Yijing， and Famou
A metric is only as meaningful as what it measures. At Create 2026， Baidu introduced a new generation of agents that are already putting DAA to work.
DuMate is Baidu's general-purpose agent. It doesn't answer questions one at a time - it runs tasks in parallel. Handle the inbox， analyze the sales data， draft the marketing copy. Simultaneously. In the international agent benchmark PinchBench， DuMate ranked first globally with a 93.3% task completion rate. It's also a single entry point： one prompt can route through Baidu Search， Miaoda coding agent， Famou agent， and many other capabilities， all at once.
Miaoda and MeDo are the coding agents. Over a million applications built. More than 10 million users. 81% of them with no coding background. Robin's framing was blunt： development costs are collapsing toward zero. "Disposable software" - built for a single purpose， a single moment - is now a real idea. Global developers can already access MeDo， Miaoda's international version， at medo.dev.
Baidu Yijing is a digital human platform integrated with live streaming， video production， and real-time interaction across 12 languages， with native-level lip-sync. As Robin put it： "A digital human is simply an agent you can see. Equipped with voice， facial expressions， and gestures， a digital human is more expressive and more trustworthy." This year， a Coca-Cola World Cup TVC was produced through Yijing - five characters， five city styles， all directed and edited by AI. Production time was cut by more than half.
Famou Agent 2.0 is the self-evolving decision agent. It works in operations environments： manufacturing scheduling， logistics planning， and process optimization. At one of the world's most automated terminals， Famou delivered a 10.21% efficiency improvement on top of an already optimized baseline. That translates to roughly one million additional standard containers processed per year.
Underneath all of this is Baidu's full-stack infrastructure - computing， cloud， models， and agents - rebuilt for the agent era. Robin was direct： "AI is not just a model. It is a system. It is a new generation of computing." Baidu AI Cloud has been repositioned as a full-stack AI cloud purpose-built for large-scale agent workloads.
From Consumption to Delivery： What DAA Is Really Asking the Industry to Do
As agents move from novelty to necessity - running in ports， factories， classrooms， and boardrooms - how we measure AI starts to matter a great deal. That's why DAA asks the harder questions： did the agent actually deliver？ Was the task completed？ Did something real happen as a result？
Metrics shape behavior. If you measure token consumption， you build for scale. If you measure daily active agents， you build for outcomes. That is what DAA is really challenging the industry to do - to reorient around a different definition of what success looks like.
Here's a quick look at what else has been happening at Baidu this month：
Q1 2026： AI Business Crosses a New Threshold
For the first time， Baidu Core AI-powered Business represented more than half of Baidu General Business revenue， bringing in over RMB 13.6 billion in Q1 2026， up 49% year-over-year.
Growth was broad-based across AI Cloud infrastructure， AI applications， and Apollo Go. Full report here.
Apollo Go： 3.2 Million Fully Driverless Rides Delivered in Q1
Apollo Go had a strong start to the year. In Q1 alone， we delivered 3.2 million fully driverless rides， with total rides continuing to grow at a triple-digit rate year-over-year. Over 22 million cumulative rides are provided to the public as of April 2026.
It also continued expanding internationally， as the global footprint reached 27 cities as of May 2026. The driverless operations are now running across multiple zones in Dubai， with the Apollo Go App launched in March， while it is on track to commence open-road testing in Switzerland， and to begin testing in London with Uber and Lyft soon.
Baidu AI Cloud Ranked No. 1 in Autonomous Driving R&D Solutions in China
According to IDC China's H2 2025 report， Baidu AI Cloud captured over a third of China's autonomous driving R&D solutions market， ranking first.
It now serves the top 15 auto brands by sales and the top 10 NEV companies in China， helping automakers move autonomous driving from R&D into mass production.
ERNIE 5.1 Is Now Available
We launched our latest foundation model that builds on ERNIE 5.0， with upgrades across search， reasoning， knowledge Q&A， creative writing， and agentic capabilities at around 6% of the pre-training cost of comparable models.
On LMArena's Search Leaderboard， ERNIE 5.1 scored 1，223 to rank 4th globally and 1st among Chinese models. Try it at ernie.baidu.com.
MSCI ESG Rating Upgraded to AA
We released our annual ESG report. Our MSCI ESG rating was raised to AA， and we were included in S&P Global's Sustainability Yearbook 2026.
From accessible mobility to closing the AI skills gap， we're working to make sure more people can share in the progress AI brings. Full report here.
Have a question about building with MeDo， or something you'd love us to cover next？ Leave a comment or DM us！
Until our next roundup， keep up with our latest AI developments and innovations by following us on LinkedIn and X.
Baidu Inc.@Baidu_Inc · X