Google Announces Leadership Change in Search, Structural Changes in AI

Google announced a leadership change to its Knowledge & Information (K&I) team and some structural changes to its Gemini team.

At K&I, which includes the company’s Search, Ads, Geo and Commerce products, Nick Fox will succeed Prabhakar Raghavan as head of the team, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said in a Thursday (Oct. 17) announcement.

Raghavan will move to the role of chief technologist at Google where he will partner with Pichai and Google leads to “provide technical direction and leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence,” Pichai said in the announcement.

While Raghavan was leading K&I, the group launched AI Overviews in Search; added new search modalities like Circle to Search, video understanding and “shop what you see” in Lens; added artificial intelligence-driven features like immersive view and virtual try-on to Maps and Shopping; and made progress on AI-powered ad formats and streamlined campaign management, according to the announcement.

“I’m so grateful to Prabhakar for the strong foundation and leadership bench he’s built across K&I,” Pichai said in the announcement. “That includes his incredible senior leaders and Nick who is ready to hit the ground running in his new role as SVP of K&I!”

Fox, a member of Raghavan’s leadership team at K&I who will now lead that team, has demonstrated leadership across the different facets of K&I, was a pioneering leader in Ads, and launched products like Google Fi, according to the announcement.

“I frequently turn to Nick to tackle our most challenging product questions, and he consistently delivers progress with tenacity, speed and optimism,” Pichai said in the announcement.

The announcement also said that the Gemini app team led by Sissie Hsaio will join Google DeepMind under Demis Hassabis, enabling the app team and the Gemini models team to work together more closely.

It also said that the Assistant teams focused on devices and home experiences will move to Platforms & Devices so that they are closer to the products for which they are building the assistants.

Google DeepMind said Oct. 9 that it developed an AI model to predict key properties of potential drugs, aiming to accelerate pharmaceutical research.

On Tuesday (Oct. 15), Google said that it revamped its shopping platform with an experience powered by AI that will roll out across the United States in the coming weeks.

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