The head of Baidu Inc has pledged to shift the company's business from a search-oriented model to one based on artificial intelligence, after a recent government probe put a chill on its core search business.

Baidu CEO Li Yanhong said in an internal letter on Tuesday that the shift will allow the company to develop such areas as voice search, automatic translation and driverless vehicles.

Li, who is a co-founder of Baidu, which runs China's largest online search engine, also vowed to emphasize user experience over income and to set up a department to root out any behavior that might damage user experience.