(Bloomberg) – Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced changes to Google’s workplace team structure, a move that will help the company develop artificial intelligence products and services faster and more efficiently. Said it was helpful.
In a memo to employees, also published in a blog post on Thursday, Pichai said the models, research and responsible AI teams will be combined under the company's flagship artificial intelligence division, Google DeepMind.
To accelerate work on Google's AI models (Gemini and Gemma), technology employees across Google Research and Google DeepMind have come together as one team to save the expensive computing power needed to train and build the systems. will also be integrated under a division of the company. . Responsible AI teams across the business will also move under Google DeepMind.
Meanwhile, the newly combined Platforms and Devices team will bring together the efforts of Google's entire hardware, software and AI teams, including teams working on products like Android, Chrome, search and photos, Pichai said. . The group will also include employees working on computational photography and on-device AI capabilities, such as Google's recently announced “circle to search” AI tool in partnership with Samsung Electronics.
Pichai wrote that the changes “will help us be more focused and clear on our mission.”
Google is ramping up its efforts in generative AI to keep up with the combined efforts of Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI, which many perceive to be more advanced, but the company is also prioritizing Change and reduce costs. Over the past few months, this has resulted in a series of gradual layoffs, creating a harsh new reality of uncertainty for employees. In January, the company cut hundreds of jobs in its digital assistant, hardware and engineering teams.
At the same time, Google planned a necessary reorganization to focus more on launching AI tools and services. Earlier this year, the company announced Gemini 1.5 Pro, a new version of its powerful AI model that can handle larger amounts of text, video, and even audio output compared to its competitors. We also rebranded our chatbot to Gemini and released a more open large-scale language model to gain support from the open source community.
But Google has also faced challenges, such as when it was widely criticized over its AI image generation tool that created ahistorical images of people. Pichai also announced Thursday the creation of a core company, the Trust and Safety team, which will invest more in testing and evaluating AI systems. The move appears aimed at addressing the risks associated with deploying consumer AI products by centralizing accountability to one team.
In his memo, Pichai also cited employee protests against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint agreement with Amazon.com to provide AI and cloud services to the Israeli government and military. Google on Wednesday fired 28 employees involved in the protests.
“We have a vibrant culture of open discussion that allows us to build great products and turn great ideas into action. But at the end of the day, we are a workplace. Our policies and expectations are clear: This is a business, not a business,” Pichai wrote. It's a place where people engage in behavior that confuses co-workers, makes them feel unsafe, attempts to use the company as a personal platform, fights over disruptive issues, and debates politics. ”
See more articles like this at bloomberg.com
©2024 Bloomberg LP
Unlock a world of benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time inventory tracking, breaking news and personalized newsfeeds, it's all here, just a click away. Log in here!
