In short. Baidu documents search access in ERNIE Bot through a Baidu Search plugin and ERNIE X1 tools that include advanced search and webpage reading.

Definition: The Baidu ERNIE assistant is Baidu's conversational product, called ERNIE Bot in its announcements. Baidu's product disclosures through March 2025 document access to Baidu Search and tools for searching information and reading webpages.

Key facts

Baidu's Wave Summit announcement, published in August 2023, lists Baidu Search among five native ERNIE Bot plugins and describes support for up to three plugins simultaneously.
Baidu's Deep Search announcement, published in February 2025, describes a function combining thinking, planning and tool calling.
Baidu's ERNIE X1 launch announcement names advanced search, webpage reading and Baidu academic search among the model's tools.

How does search enter the assistant?

A plugin adds a named capability to the assistant. In the Wave Summit disclosure, Baidu explicitly identifies Baidu Search as an ERNIE Bot plugin.

The same announcement identifies ChatFile as a separate plugin for conversations based on long documents. This gives website analysts a useful distinction when recording an answer: search access and interaction with an uploaded document are separate documented capabilities. An observation should identify the capability used to supply information to the assistant.

Which search tools does ERNIE X1 support?

ERNIE X1 is a reasoning model that Baidu makes available through ERNIE Bot in its March 2025 launch disclosure. The disclosure lists these exact tool names among its capabilities:

advanced search
webpage reading
Baidu academic search
business information search
franchise information search

The list covers both general search and searches aimed at particular information needs. It also explicitly includes reading a webpage, a capability relevant to examining how the assistant uses website content. The announcement provides no publisher-facing rule for selecting webpages or displaying citations.

For a website review, these tool names provide concrete capabilities to look for in the interface and in recorded interactions. An analyst can record the selected model, the search function used and any source links actually displayed alongside an answer.

How does this relate to Baidu Search?

The same launch announcement presents ERNIE Bot's website as an access point for ERNIE X1 and ERNIE 4.5. It separately describes planned integration of those models into Baidu Search and the Wenxiaoyan app.

This product distinction matters when collecting evidence about a website. A record of an answer should identify whether the interaction takes place in ERNIE Bot or within Baidu Search. The model name alone leaves the product surface unspecified.

FAQ

Can the ERNIE assistant access search information?

Yes. Baidu's plugin announcement documents a Baidu Search integration, and its ERNIE X1 disclosure lists search tools. For your own review, record which model and function the interface exposes.

What does Baidu call Deep Search?

Baidu's announcement on its official LinkedIn account calls Deep Search a function with enhanced thinking, planning and tool calling. The announcement presents it as a function of the assistant.

Sources

Check how a page reads to answer engines. Open the GEO score analyzer