According to Beating Monitor, Baidu founder Robin Li made a bold assertion at the Create 2026 Baidu AI Developer Conference: the industry’s obsession with token consumption does not represent the ultimate outcome. Tokens are merely a cost, not a revenue; they measure input, not output. Whether these tokens are consumed efficiently or generate meaningful value cannot be determined by the tokens themselves. Li introduced a new metric—DAA (Daily Active Agents)—as a counterpart to DAU (Daily Active Users) in the mobile internet era. His reasoning: when an individual owns multiple agents and a company manages hundreds or thousands of them, the total number will far exceed the global population base reflected in DAU. Currently, Meta leads the world in DAU with over 3.4 billion; Li believes global DAA will easily surpass 10 billion in the future. “What matters more than meaningless token consumption is how many agents are actively working for humans and delivering tangible results—this is closer to true value and essence.” He cited the explosive popularity of OpenClaw as an example: for the first time in history, an agent—not a model—has gone mainstream. The focus of AI has shifted from models to applications. Users pay not for how intelligent the model is, but for whether it can get tasks done. Based on this, Li divided AI interfaces into two generations: chatbots like ChatGPT represent the first generation, solving information retrieval; general-purpose agents represent the second generation, solving task completion—“with a higher value ceiling than chatbots.” Li also declared that AI is giving rise to “super individuals.” Previously, the smallest unit of productivity was a team; now, it’s one person augmented by a fleet of agents. At the organizational level, managers can oversee 30–50 people instead of just 10, with their core function shifting from supervision and command to one word: alignment—ensuring people are doing the right things.
Li Yanhong proposes a new metric, "Daily Active Agents," to measure AI value.
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Summary
Li Yanhong, founder of Baidu, introduced the metric Daily Active Agents (DAA) at the Create 2026 Baidu AI Developer Conference. He argued that token consumption reflects cost, not value, and proposed DAA as a superior indicator of AI utility. Li compared DAA to DAU in the mobile internet era, emphasizing the number of active AI agents as a key metric. He also noted the transition from models to task-completing agents, calling it the next AI interface. This AI + crypto news highlights a potential connection between AI metrics and new token listings.
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