Google is changing Prabhakar Raghavan, the corporate’s search and advertisements boss, with longtime Google government Nick Fox.
The transfer was introduced by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who mentioned in a weblog publish on Thursday that Raghavan will likely be transferring into the position of chief technologist after 12 years of main groups throughout the search firm. Raghavan will proceed to report back to Pichai within the new position, the corporate advised CNBC in a press release.
“Prabhakar has decided it’s time to make a big leap in his own career,” Pichai wrote within the publish. “In this role, he’ll partner closely with me and Google leads to provide technical direction and leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence.”
The transfer comes as Google continues to restructure its groups to maneuver extra rapidly within the synthetic intelligence arms race, the place it faces elevated competitors. The corporate can be coping with a number of antitrust lawsuits associated to its search and advertisements enterprise.
Fox has lengthy been a member of Raghavan’s management group. He will likely be main Google’s Information and Info division, which incorporates the corporate’s search, advertisements and commerce merchandise, Pichai mentioned.
A Google worker since 2003, Fox has been vp of product and design for the corporate’s Assistant product lately. He beforehand labored throughout the firm’s advertisements enterprise unit.
“Over the past few years, Nick has been instrumental in shaping Google’s AI product roadmap and collaborating closely with Prabhakar,” Pichai wrote.
Raghavan has led the data and data unit since 2018. Earlier this yr, he advised workers to arrange for a special market actuality as a result of “things are not like they were 15-20 years ago,” CNBC reported.
Moreover, Pichai introduced that the group engaged on Google’s Gemini app, which incorporates Google’s AI direct-to-consumer merchandise, will be part of Google DeepMind underneath AI head Demis Hassabis.
“Bringing the teams closer together will improve feedback loops, enable fast deployment of our new models in the Gemini app,” Pichai wrote.
The transfer additionally means the Assistant groups targeted on units and residential experiences will transfer to the Platforms and Units unit “so they can sit closer to the product surfaces they’re building for,” Pichai wrote.
Correction: A previous model of this story mentioned Raghavan was turning into CTO. A Google spokesperson mentioned the corporate was incorrect in providing that info.