Paramount Skydance has just made a key hire to further its AI push.
Barak Turovsky, who oversaw Google’s AI language products for seven years, will join David Ellison’s company as head of consumer AI, product head Dane Glasgow told technical staff Monday afternoon.
Mr. Turovsky most recently worked at General Motors and has held positions at companies including Cisco, PayPal, SAP and IBM.
In an email obtained by Business Insider, Mr. Glasgow told employees that Mr. Turowski’s hiring will help Paramount “supercharge” the company’s transformation as it leverages AI to “meaningfully drive” growth.
Turovsky will be “responsible for growing our AI/ML team” and “exploring ways to leverage AI” across the streaming business, headlined by Paramount+ and free streamer Pluto TV, Glasgow said.
Glasgow then listed ways in which AI can assist streamers.
- personalization
- content discovery
- platform intelligence
- consumer engagement
- Monetization function
The company has been looking to enhance its streaming service with new features for consumers. Paramount+ is rolling out a short-form video feed and developing interactive features centered around shopping tools and sports statistics. The company is also considering putting video podcasts on Paramount+.
Paramount leans into technology
A software engineer at Paramount told Business Insider that the company is increasingly using AI, using eight to 10 agents at a time to complete tasks. The AI user said Paramount is “getting better and better” at implementing the technology, adding that it’s still catching up to companies like Netflix and Google.
Paramount’s head of product said in an email Monday that the company’s goal is to “attract some of the best talent available” as it leans into AI.
Mr. Ellison’s company recently hired fellow former Google executive Hugh Williams as vice president and “executive in residence.” Last fall, Glasgow joined Paramount from Meta and revenue chief Jay Askinasi from Roku.
Paramount is looking to hire AI enthusiasts lower down the chain of command, based on a current job listing for a lead software engineer with experience building “intelligent automation systems.”
Business Insider reported Friday that the company plans to restructure its technology organization with the departure of Chief Technology Officer Phil Weiser at the end of this month. The company will not replace Mr. Weiser, instead planning to have four key executives report directly to Glasgow.
Google alum Barak Turovsky is Paramount’s newest hire. Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis (via Getty Images)
Turovsky, who joined Paramount as vice president on Monday, will also be based in Glasgow.
Robert Dumoulin, Paramount’s senior vice president of applied intelligence, will report directly to Turovsky.
You can read the full memo from Glasgow to employees here.
team, As we see every day, the pace of technological change our industry is experiencing is rapid, and we have already made great strides in recent months to evolve our organization and products to remain at the forefront of what’s possible. To accelerate our transformation, I am pleased to announce that Barak Turovsky will join Paramount as our Vice President and Head of Consumer AI, reporting to me. Barak brings deep and relevant experience by contributing to the development of the foundational technologies that underpin AI and applying those capabilities at scale across multiple industries. At Google, he led the Language AI product organization responsible for commercializing AI technology across products such as Google Search, Ads, YouTube, Cloud, Translation, and Android, and spearheaded the product efforts supporting the industry’s first large-scale commercial deployment of large-scale language models and Transformers-based technology. He then held senior positions focused on AI at both General Motors and Cisco, where he led research, engineering, and product teams to develop cutting-edge solutions and technologies. He joins us at a critical time in our evolution as we look to scale AI and ML to meaningfully drive our growth. He will be responsible for growing our AI/ML team and its capabilities as we attract top talent. Barak and his team will also explore ways to leverage AI to improve personalization, content discovery, platform intelligence, consumer engagement, and monetization capabilities across Paramount+ and Pluto TV. To foster strong collaboration across these efforts, Robert Dumoulin, senior vice president of applied intelligence, will report to Barak. Technology is always a multiplier for creativity, and with Barack’s leadership, we look forward to seeing the impact he and his team will have as we drive the evolution of technology. Please join me in welcoming Barack to Paramount! cheers! Dane