Text by Wang Huiying

Edited by Ziye

Zhou Hongyi calls himself a "social anxiety sufferer."

This is a statement, but we still want to put a question mark next to it.

At the Beijing Auto Show, Zhou Hongyi, who climbed onto the roof of a car and was called the only car model in the entire show by netizens, was him; the "influencer" who held his phone to record and share his views anytime, anywhere, was him; and at the dawn of large models, the "AI evangelist" who used four "Do you believe" questions to urge the audience to establish AI faith was also him.

These things obviously have little to do with "social anxiety."

In the past seven months, starting with the confrontation between Zhou Hongyi and Cheng Qian, the host of "Cheng Qian's Circle of Friends," at the 2023 Fengmaniu Year-End Show Roundtable Forum, the gears of traffic began to turn.

On the Douyin platform, the personal account "Uncle Zhou Hongyi in Red" has already published 1,418 short videos, almost one every day. Becoming an influencer in the short video era is one of Zhou Hongyi's key goals this year, with the aim of first reaching 10 million followers, a goal he is getting closer and closer to.

Zhou Hongyi has reaped abundant traffic and embraced immense wealth, embarking on the "road to fame" of a middle-aged entrepreneur.

Image source: Screenshot from Zhou Hongyi's Weibo video

Today, Zhou Hongyi, setting aside his identity as the founder of 360, is the focus wherever he goes.

Zhou Hongyi hasn't changed, still wearing rimless glasses and a red shirt, what has changed is the times.

The saying "Good wine needs no bush" is no longer shared by the times. There are more and more wines, good or bad, that need to be brought out. As the core of an enterprise, building the IP of the founder becomes crucial.

Lei Jun can leverage his IP influence to boost Xiaomi Automobile sales, and Zhou Hongyi also wants to do something for 360. "Many entrepreneurs are influencers, like Xiaomi's Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong. I also hope to save billions of dollars in advertising costs for 360 in the future."

Promoting 360's large model business is more practical. The large model trend has been blowing for two years, from parameters to implementation. As one of the first internet companies in China to release a large model, 360's slogan has always been "All in AI." In Zhou Hongyi's view, 360's future is AI, and AI will not eliminate any industry or individual; those who do not use AI will be eliminated by those who truly understand AI.

Whether successful or not, Zhou Hongyi has already "rolled up his pants and waded in." At least, the current trend is as Zhou Hongyi hopes, and he is on his way to becoming the "best spokesperson" for the 360 Group.

1. Addicted to being an "automotive experience officer," Zhou Hongyi

Without a driver's license, Zhou Hongyi opened a "798 Mini Car Show" downstairs at the 360 Group in Beijing.

This scene would be strange if it happened to someone else, but it seems logical when it comes to Zhou Hongyi. Surprising people is the consistent style of this internet veteran. When he boldly entered the mobile phone industry, Zhou Hongyi wrote, "Sorry, I'm here to cause trouble in the mobile phone industry."

This time, instead of causing trouble in the automotive industry, Zhou Hongyi instead sparked a new wave of traffic for domestic new energy vehicles with a "Red Clothes Car Sales Campaign."

On April 18, Zhou Hongyi released a video stating that he planned to sell his nine-year-old Maybach S600 and switch to a domestic new energy vehicle. He asked his fans for suggestions on which car to buy. Even Zhou Hongyi didn't expect that this "burning one's bridges" move would bring nearly all domestic new energy vehicle bosses and new cars to him.

At 9 p.m. that night, Xpeng had already parked its new X9 under the 360 Group compound; the next day, Zeekr 009, Chery StarTrack brought the ES and ET models to the 360 parking lot. Chinese auto company executives who didn't have time to deliver their cars could only tweet at him on Weibo, asking Mr. Zhou to take a look at their new cars as well.

Of course, Zhou Hongyi didn't forget to update his video, expressing his gratitude and saying that he felt like "a mouse falling into a rice barrel, not knowing which one to eat first." In this way, Zhou Hongyi began his journey as an "experience officer" in the automotive industry.

At the Beijing Auto Show, Zhou Hongyi visited the Nezha Motors booth as the "head of the experience team"; at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Auto Show, at the invitation of Yu Chengdong, Chairman of Huawei's Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, Zhou Hongyi came to the HarmonyOS Smart Travel booth to experience the just-launched panoramic smart flagship sedan, Enjoy S9...

Others have entered the automotive industry with their strength, while Zhou Hongyi relies on divine traffic.

Recently, while experiencing the gull-wing door anti-pinch function of the Aion Hyperion model under GAC Motor, Zhou Hongyi unfortunately got his hand caught in the door.

On the same day, Zhou Hongyi released a video response, saying, "GAC Motor's Aion Hyperion is a good car, and my hand is also a good hand."

Image source: Douyin account of "Uncle Zhou Hongyi in Red"

At the 12th Internet Security Conference held today, Zhou Hongyi responded again, saying, "Fortunately, my hand is fine. This reflects the characteristics of our security industry. The security industry is very persistent, and when it encounters something, it always thinks about security issues. When encountering such physical security issues, it's better not to use your own hands to experiment, using sausages or cucumbers is a better option."

On the Douyin account of "Uncle Zhou Hongyi in Red," the "Red Clothes New Energy" collection has been updated to 84 episodes, with a frequency approaching daily updates.

In addition to recording Zhou Hongyi's purchase of the Zeekr 009 Glorious Edition, the AITO M9, and the Hongqi HQ9, he also transformed into the "frontline anchor" of various brand factories. However, the car that appears most frequently in Lao Zhou's videos is still the Nezha.

Flashback to 2021, Zhou Hongyi invested 2.9 billion yuan through 360 to become a shareholder of Nezha Motors.

With a close relationship with Nezha Motors, as the new "top stream" in the automotive industry, Zhou Hongyi naturally mentions Nezha frequently. With Zhou Hongyi's traffic endorsement, Nezha Motors has been trending multiple times in just two months, with good news coming one after another.

In mid-April, Nezha secured a new round of 5 billion yuan in financing; on May 27, Nezha L surpassed 30,000 cumulative orders within 35 days of its launch; on June 26, Nezha's parent company, Hetong New Energy, officially submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. If the IPO is successful, Nezha Motors is expected to become the fifth new energy vehicle maker to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, following NIO, Xpeng, Li Auto, and Zero Run.

Zhou Hongyi has said directly that he will not be the spokesperson for a specific automotive brand but will instead speak for the entire Chinese new energy connected vehicle industry. "I want to use my experience and influence to convey the message that China's smart connected vehicles and new energy vehicle industry have risen."

Over the past three months, Zhou Hongyi has enjoyed his role as an automotive KOL. As Zhou Hongyi jokes, "I can't drive, I don't have a driver's license, and I don't understand the mechanical principles of cars, so I can only make superficial judgments from the perspective of a passenger."

Returning to this year's Beijing Auto Show, the "Uncle in Red" who climbed onto the roof of a car subverted the image of car models at previous auto shows. When asked about this incident in an interview, Zhou Hongyi responded by saying that he "has a bit of social anxiety and tends to freeze in front of the camera." To prove that he was not a digital person, he climbed onto the roof of the car, just to show off his recent rock climbing achievements.

This is very "Zhou Hongyi." At the age of 50, he built a rock climbing gym on the 6th floor of the 360 headquarters building for his love of rock climbing. Today, he boldly enters the automotive industry, unconcerned about online doubts about him cashing in on traffic, focusing solely on his passion.

On July 24, Zhou Hongyi picked up his fourth new energy vehicle, the Dongfeng Mengshi 917, in Wuhan. Perhaps cars are just the new hobby of this 53-year-old Uncle in Red, regardless of whether he has a driver's license or not.

2. What is AI evangelist Zhou Hongyi researching?

In the automotive industry, Zhou Hongyi is a novice, but in the booming AI industry over the past two years, programmer-turned Zhou Hongyi is "Teacher Zhou."

This stems from the first free AI public lecture titled "Anticipating AGI" given by Zhou Hongyi on the last day of February, with over 400,000 online viewers in the live stream; in April, Zhou Hongyi capitalized on the momentum and stood on stage for over three hours, launching his second free AI lecture live stream on "How Enterprises Can Embrace AI."

The broader context is that the emergence of ChatGPT and Sora as two phenomenal products in the AI large model industry has sparked waves of entrepreneurial enthusiasm. AI is no longer just a technological topic but a societal one, having fully emerged from its niche.

According to Zhou Hongyi, facing AI, anxiety is useless; one must proactively embrace it, participate actively, and become a promoter. And he has become an AI "evangelist."

"I just happen to enjoy thinking and explaining things from shallow to deep using the language of ordinary people."

In the live stream, based on his years of AI knowledge, Zhou Hongyi freely shares his views with the industry and fans. He shares the sixteen trends in AI industry development for 2024 and advises enterprises on how to embrace AI and establish AI faith; he also reminds enterprises to be vigilant against the four misconceptions of large models, emphasizing the importance of combining them with business to find the "star scenario."

In the field of large AI models, Zhou Hongyi seems more radical and committed. Not only does he offer free AI public lectures, but 360's strategy was adjusted to "All in AI" last year.

Amid the Hundred Models War ignited in China, 360 was one of the first internet companies in China to release a large model. Within the three months after ChatGPT gained popularity in China, the "360 Brain" large model application has iterated from version 1.0 to 4.0.

Based on the self-developed general large model "360 Brain," 360 has successively launched AI products such as 360 AI Search, 360 AI Browser, and 360 AI Digital Human Platform, reshaping national-level internet products.

To some extent, Teacher Zhou's public lectures aim to promote 360's AI upgrade or promote 360's AI business.

Image source: 360 Blackboard WeChat official account

For example, in the live stream, Zhou Hongyi demonstrates the fully AI-upgraded 360 AI Search and 360 AI Browser, allowing users to more tangibly feel the experience innovation brought about by large model technology; he also demonstrates cases of 360 Smart Business improving enterprise marketing efficiency to B-end users.

On his personal account, Zhou Hongyi also maintains his focus on AI, with "Uncle in Red Talks AI" having released 67 videos. These seemingly casual videos actually hide Zhou Hongyi and 360's determination to bet on AI.

In fact, looking back at 360's development, 360 has long occupied the minds of the public around search and security. Now that the AI large model trend has emerged, 360 has become one of the companies that fit best with AI and was also one of the first companies to focus on the large model industry.

360, which originally developed search engines, relies on NLP (Natural Language Processing), a fundamental knowledge for internet recommendations. Before ChatGPT emerged, Google had launched a model called Bert, which Zhou Hongyi instructed his search and AI teams to pay close attention to.

When ChatGPT emerged, Zhou Hongyi's focus shifted to the application itself. In August 2023, 360 Security's large model was officially released. Known as the first deliverable large model in the security industry in China, it is not an independent product but a complementary plugin for 360 Security Cloud Services.

Although both focus on large model applications and implementations, unlike Baidu founder Robin Li, who emphasizes AI-native applications, Zhou Hongyi pursues a "small incision, large depth" approach to large model implementation. He believes that large model implementation should not disrupt existing business systems but should start with modularization and loose coupling, gradually integrating with enterprises' intelligent transformation through future iterations.

Essentially, this still aligns with the overall trend in the industry this year—competing on implementation and scenarios.

At the 2024 China Internet Conference, Zhou Hongyi illustrated that the power of large models is like an electric motor, which cannot be used directly but can be transformed into a car when attached to wheels or into a fan when attached to blades. Therefore, it must be combined with work and life scenarios to become a product that can enter various industries and households.

When talking about AI, Zhou Hongyi is not nervous but eloquent, even having his own speech techniques:

First, do you believe this is real AI, not artificial stupidity like Siri in the past?

Second, do you believe this is an industrial revolution that will sweep all industries in the next 5-10 years?

Third, do you believe AI will reshape every link in your products, services, and internal management?

Fourth, do you believe that not using AI will lead to being eliminated by competitors who do use AI?

In Zhou Hongyi's view, ChatGPT should not be seen as a toy, a chatbot, or a search engine, which are all disguises for its promotion. The real power lies in the superbrain hidden behind the chat window, representing the advent of a super AI era.

In the AI era, 360 may seize new growth opportunities, and Zhou Hongyi serves as a bridge connecting 360 with the market and ordinary people with AI.

3. Zhou Hongyi, 360's biggest IP, can his sharing drive sales?

No matter what identity he has, Zhou Hongyi cannot escape the label of "influencer" this year.

With over 6 million followers on his Douyin account and his posts frequently trending, this self-deprecating "outdated old-generation entrepreneur" has regained popularity and is going further down this path.

Being "red" is nothing new in Zhou Hongyi's world. When he was young, he wore his signature red clothes, exuded a rugged charm, and had fighting spirit, earning him the nickname "Red Cannon."

From the 3Q War against Tencent, to the search war against Baidu, to the mobile phone war against Xiaomi, Zhou Hongyi was at the center of traffic and the strongest IP for 360 in every battle.

Today, "Red Cannon" has become "Uncle in Red," but what hasn't changed is Zhou Hongyi's curiosity. As an automotive experience officer, AI evangelist, and influencer, Zhou Hongyi is sensitive to fresh things in this era and puts them into practice.

Earlier this year, he engaged in a heated debate with Cheng Qian, the host of "Cheng Qian's Circle of Friends," at the "2023 Fengmaniu Year-End Show" Roundtable Forum, garnering significant attention with his high-EQ responses.

A few days later, Zhou Hongyi seized the momentum and launched a three-hour live stream titled "You Too Can Have Great Oratory Skills - How to Speak," teaching netizens how to give good speeches.

In the past, a company's market performance was an important criterion for evaluating entrepreneurs. Today, entrepreneurs must not only control the strategic direction of the company but also excel at expression. This poses a challenge for some founders who are not good at speaking and fear becoming too famous, but it comes naturally to long-time traffic center founders like Zhou Hongyi.

In particular, Lei Jun's personal influence has driven Xiaomi's automobile sales, once again confirming that "learning to better communicate with the public is a required course for entrepreneurs."

To some extent, Zhou Hongyi was one of the first to recognize the shift in trends. For the past six months, his greatest passion has been becoming an internet celebrity, tirelessly promoting the concept of becoming an entrepreneur's IP, as entrepreneurs are the best spokespersons.

Rather than being an automobile experience officer, Zhou Hongyi frankly stated that he would rather be the leader of a security team for automobiles, addressing issues related to automotive network security and digital security. As an AI evangelist, delivering AI public lectures is also inseparable from his original field of security and search.

No matter what face he presents to the public, Zhou Hongyi's core identity remains the founder of the 360 Group.

In other words, Zhou Hongyi's desire to become famous stems partly from his own curiosity and partly from his commitment to 360, with the latter being more significant.

Zhou Hongyi also aims to direct his traffic to 360, contributing to the growth of its performance.

Perhaps the most representative action is that after deciding to enter the "automotive circle" as an internet celebrity, Zhou Hongyi almost always mentions Lei Jun and Xiaomi in his public speeches. He has a clear understanding of Lei Jun's strategies and Xiaomi's marketing tactics, earning him the nickname "Dean of the Lei Jun Research Institute."

In February of this year, Zhou Hongyi began researching the influencer economy and sought advice from Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui. This sparked speculation about Zhou Hongyi and 360 entering the live streaming and e-commerce space.

At that time, Zhou Hongyi stated directly that 360 had no plans for live streaming and e-commerce; his focus was on the influencer economy. "If I were to study the influencer economy, my primary goal would be to represent and advocate for 360. I also hope that in the future, I can save 360 hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising costs."

Five months have passed, and Zhou Hongyi has developed new ideas.

On July 8, 360 released its first children's watch, the A9 AI Red Version, which integrates the 360 Brain large model. During the launch event, Zhou Hongyi "loosened his stance."

Zhou Hongyi stated that he would break his no-selling rule and promote his own products. During the event, he also openly sought advice from education blogger Zhang Xuefeng on live streaming and e-commerce tips.

It is worth mentioning that on May 20th of this year, Zhou Hongyi also appeared in JD.com's 3C digital products procurement and sales live broadcast room, visiting JD.com's headquarters in Beijing with JD.com Group CEO Xu Ran. During the live broadcast, there were no shortage of 360 cameras, automotive accessories, and other products. Zhou Hongyi emphasized that promoting his own products on JD.com did not constitute live streaming and e-commerce.

Image source: 360 Blackboard News WeChat official account

Today, although Zhou Hongyi has "broken his promise," it is not entirely unexpected. Zhou Hongyi is now considered one of the top entrepreneurs, and the influencer and live streaming economies are thriving. Diverting his own traffic to his company and using his personal popularity to pave the way for the company's development is a path for entrepreneurs to monetize their traffic.

It must be said that Zhou Hongyi is indeed a representative of the "restless" among this batch of Internet veterans, daring to put aside grudges, face, and status, maintaining his curiosity and action.

Over the past few months, Zhou Hongyi has led 360 to take new steps in exploration. Despite being over fifty years old, Zhou Hongyi still has a "pioneering spirit," and 360, which is in its mid-twenties, is also at a critical juncture for renewed efforts.

(The cover image of this article is sourced from the Douyin account of Zhou Hongyi, the Red Clothes Uncle.)