Physix FrontierPhysix Frontier · News Briefing Card (enbrief · Oct 18, 2026)
DeepSeek Opens Search API as Tencent, ByteDance, Alibaba Enter
KEY FACTS
- DeepSeek opened its self-developed search engine API on October 17, comprising two parts: Search and Fetch.
- The search API charges $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests, roughly 5 yuan.
- Tencent, ByteDance, Alibaba, Zhipu, and Kimi have all launched search services aimed at large models.
- Baidu's online marketing services revenue in the second quarter of 2026 was 13.1 billion yuan, down 19% year over year.
- DeepSeek says its search index covers hundreds of billions of web pages globally and handles hundreds of millions of requests per day.
KEY DATA
$0.75 per 1,000 requestsSearch API price
13.1 billion yuanBaidu online marketing revenue
down 19%Baidu online marketing revenue YoY
hundreds of billions of pagesDeepSeek web index scale
PHYSIX OBSERVATION
Search is shifting from an entry point users open to a foundational capability AI calls on demand, and the value of the search box Baidu has defended is being steadily diluted. The more notable signal is that AI vendors are starting to market filtering out SEO and GEO manipulation as a selling point; the offense-defense battle over content manipulation may become the focus of the next stage of competition, and businesses that gain traffic through bulk spam content will find it increasingly hard to survive.
Source: enbrief original report ↗