Recently, 360 Group officially released its newly upgraded large-scale search product "360 AI Search" mobile app, version 1.0.0. This product is now available on multiple Android app stores.

According to the introduction, "360 AI Search" is a new generation answer engine dedicated to providing users with more relevant and comprehensive search query answers. When users enter a question in "360 AI Search," the system triggers a series of complex processing processes, including question analysis, web retrieval, re-matching and sorting, content extraction, etc., ultimately generating logical and well-founded answers for users.

It is worth noting that the iOS version of "360 AI Search" was briefly available on the Apple App Store on January 26, but was taken down less than 22 hours later for reasons that have not been disclosed. Currently, the product has not been launched on iOS.

In April 2023, Zhou Hongyi, the founder and chairman of 360, stated that the company's AI development strategy will be "two wings flying together." On the one hand, it will fully develop its own generative language model technology, and on the other hand, it will occupy the scene to develop products and launch related services as soon as possible. He also pointed out that 360 will launch the first domestic AI search engine and introduce AI personal assistant products based on the search scene, subverting the traditional search model and providing users with a more intelligent and convenient search experience.

On the user side, 360 has combined the "360 GPT" product matrix "360 Brain" with the search scene, launching a new generation of intelligent search engine. The engine has now invited enterprise customers for targeted testing and will also launch AI browsers, AI personal assistants, and other products in the future. In addition, 360 plans to launch an AI store as an AI navigation platform, integrating more than ten categories of hundreds of global AI tools, including AI drawing, AI writing, AI audio production, etc.

In September 2023, "360 Brain" was first filed and fully integrated into 360 Search, 360 Browser, and other internet applications, opening to the public. On November 4th, the 360 large-scale model "Qi Yuan Large Model" was filed. 360 became the first domestic technology company to have two large models filed. In the first week of its launch, "360 Brain" received over 3 million users and more than 50 million interactions, showing excellent performance.

According to the latest data from Statcounter, as of December 2023, Baidu's market share in China's search engine market is 66.52%, ranking first; Bing's domestic version has a market share of 13.32%, while 360 Search ranks third with a market share of 6.43%, surpassing Tencent's Sogou with a market share of 5.01%.

In addition, the "360 AI Search" product mainly includes two new features: AI search and enhanced mode. The AI search function retrieves and analyzes web content through search engines to provide accurate conclusions, while the enhanced mode performs semantic analysis, asks for additional information, and then conducts deep web content retrieval by splitting keywords, ultimately generating logical and accurate answers.

However, the "360 AI Search" product still faces some issues. For example, it can currently only answer knowledge-based and topical information and cannot directly download other applications. Additionally, some links and answers may contain errors. This indicates that the product still needs continuous iteration and upgrades.

Prior to founding 360, Zhou Hongyi had established 3721 and ventured into internet content and services similar to search. Therefore, some analysts believe that Zhou Hongyi has a special sentiment towards "search," and search engines are also an important source of advertising revenue for 360. In the current AI boom, 360 urgently needs to enhance its search business to form higher technological and product "barriers." Zhou Hongyi stated, "The main theme of 2023 is how to develop large models, and the main theme of 2024 is how to use large models."

In a live dialogue on January 19, Zhou Hongyi stated that the future world will be changed by AI. He emphasized that companies need to keep up with the changing trends of the times, otherwise they will be eliminated.

As of the close on January 26, 360's stock price fell by 0.89% to close at 7.78 yuan per share. Over the past year, 360's stock price has risen by a cumulative 9.42%, with a latest market value of 55.591 billion yuan.