Google Declares a Shift in Search Leadership and AI Structure

Google disclosed a leadership transition for its Knowledge & Information (K&I) team as well as some organizational adjustments to its Gemini team.

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and Alphabet, said on Thursday, October 17, that Nick Fox will take over as team leader at K&I, which encompasses the company's Search, Ads, Geo, and Commerce businesses. Prabhakar Raghavan will be replaced by Raghavan.

In the announcement, Pichai stated that Raghavan will take on the position of top technologist at Google, where he will collaborate with Pichai and other Google executives to "provide technical direction and leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence."

According to the announcement, under Raghavan's leadership, K&I introduced AI Overviews in Search, introduced new search modalities like Circle to Search, video understanding, and "shop what you see" in Lens, integrated AI-powered features like immersive view and virtual try-on to Maps and Shopping, and advanced AI-powered ad formats and simplified campaign management.

“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!”

According to the release, Fox, a member of Raghavan's K&I leadership team who will now take the helm, has proven to be a leader in all areas of K&I, pioneered in the field of advertising, and introduced products like Google Fi.

“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.

Additionally, the release stated that Sissie Hsaio's Gemini app team will be joining Google DeepMind under Demis Hassabis, allowing for closer collaboration between the app team and the Gemini models team.

In order to be closer to the products for which they are developing the assistants, it was also said that the Assistant teams that were concentrating on devices and home experiences will relocate to Platforms & Devices.

With the goal of advancing pharmaceutical research, Google DeepMind announced on October 9 that it had created an AI model to forecast important characteristics of possible medications.

Google announced on Tuesday, October 15, that it has redesigned its shopping platform, introducing an AI-powered experience that will be available nationwide in the upcoming weeks.