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Google CEO Sundar Pichai has shaken up the tech giant's top leadership and structure to hurry up the event and launch of artificial intelligence products after facing criticism for falling behind rivals reminiscent of Microsoft.
According to a, all teams working on its AI models, including its flagship chatbot Gemini, will likely be brought together within the DeepMind division led by Demis Hassabis memo on Thursday. This includes research, models, computing power, and people chargeable for monitoring their accuracy and trustworthiness.
A brand new platform and devices team, led by Rick Osterloh, senior vice chairman of devices and services, will include those working on the hardware and software behind Android, the Chrome browser, search and photos. Hiroshi Lockheimer, head of Android, will likely be moved to work on other products and replaced by Sameer Samat, vice chairman of product management for Android and Google Play.
“These changes proceed the work we’ve got done over the past yr to simplify our structure and improve speed and execution,” Pichai said. “It will help us speed up the Android and Chrome ecosystems and convey the perfect innovations to our partners faster.” . and internally it can also speed up decision-making.”
The moves represent the largest shakeup in Google parent Alphabet's structure because the merger of its DeepMind and Google Brain AI units a yr ago. For Hassabis, who joined Google with the acquisition of his startup in 2014 and now controls much of AI development and product production, this represents a major increase in power.
Google is attempting to overcome a setback in February when it needed to pause imaging in Gemini amid furor over its inaccurate historical depiction of various ethnicities and genders. The embarrassing incident reinforced the impression that the model was less powerful than models from competitors reminiscent of OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic.
Pichai has also been criticized for being slower to commercialize generative AI, although the technology was developed by his researchers themselves. Some blame Google's fragmented structure, large-company bureaucracy and lack of a coherent company-wide plan for adopting generative AI across its range of services, the Financial Times reported.
In particular, Microsoft's $13 billion partnership with OpenAI, which gave Microsoft access to the vaunted ChatGPT model, was a significant blow to Google and has made its rival the most respected publicly traded company on this planet. Microsoft is now value greater than $3 trillion, while Alphabet has a market cap of just below $2 trillion.
The restructuring comes ahead of Google's first-quarter earnings release on April 25 and its annual I/O developer conference on May 14 and 15 at its headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Pichai's blog on Thursday also discussed an worker protest this week against an AI and cloud contract with the Israeli government and military. Nine staff who occupied a senior executive's office were arrested and 28 employees allegedly belonging to the group “No Tech for Apartheid” were fired on Wednesday.
“Ultimately, we’re a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this can be a company and never a spot where one can act in a way that upsets colleagues or makes them feel unsafe, or to try to achieve this Using business as a private platform “Fight about disturbing issues or debate politics,” Pichai wrote.
