Google's major personnel adjustment: Gemini team merged into DeepMind, search management team undergoes changes

On October 18th, according to Zhidx, Google announced today that it will merge the Gemini app large-scale application team into Google DeepMind to improve the efficiency of AI research and development work.

Meanwhile, the Google Assistant team will be integrated into the company's platform and device team to accelerate its smart home plans. Prabhakar Raghavan, who was originally in charge of Google's search and advertising business, will take on the role of Google CTO, with related work being taken over by Nick Fox, Google's Vice President of Product Management.

The Gemini app team led by Sissie Hsiao will be merged into the Google DeepMind team led by Demis Hassabis, reporting to Hassabis in the future. DeepMind is Google's AI research laboratory, and its core technology is a series of Gemini AI models.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that considering Gemini app is a B2C product, integrating its development team with one of the Gemini model development teams will not only allow for more efficient deployment of the latest Gemini models in the Gemini app, but also enable more timely collection of user feedback for optimizing and adjusting the Gemini models.

At the same time, the Assistant team focusing on devices and home experiences will be merged into the Platforms & Devices team to familiarize themselves with the design and development of product entities. This decision aims to concentrate efforts on driving Google's smart home plans and further enhancing user experience.

Former Senior Vice President of Google's search and advertising business, Prabhakar Raghavan, will now serve as Google's Chief Technology Officer. Over the past 12 years, Raghavan has led teams in research, Workspace, Ads, and Knowledge & Information (K&I) at Google.

Products such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Meet, and Google Chat are the main products of the Workspace project. During his time with the team, he led the launch of the first batch of AI features for Gmail, including smart replies and smart composing. During this period, the number of Gmail and Drive users both exceeded 1 billion.

While working in the Knowledge & Information (K&I) team, he improved the core search functions of multiple products, such as AI Overviews for Google Search and "shop what you see" for Google Lens Google Lens is an AI application that can help machines take pictures, identify, and recognize objects, and can be used in Google's AI phones. The immersive view of Google Maps, virtual try-on in the Google Store, and AI technology used in Google's Performance Max advertising series all involve the overall design by Rajan Anandan. In addition, Rajan Anandan has also introduced AI technologies such as Circle to Search (gesture search) and video understanding for Google.

The position of Senior Vice President of Knowledge & Information (K&I) team left vacant by Rajan Anandan will be taken over by another Google veteran, Nick Fox. Subsequently, Fox will be mainly responsible for products related to Google Search, Advertising, Maps, and Shopping.

Over the past few years, Fox has been working under Rajan Anandan, jointly formulating development strategies for the Knowledge & Information team. From product development and design of search and intelligent voice assistants to commerce, travel, and payment products, Fox has been involved. At the same time, he has not only played a significant role in planning Google's AI product roadmap but also led the launch of Google Fi and RCS services.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai believes, "The pace of development of AI technology is faster than any other technology in the past." In order to keep up with the continuous progress of the AI era, Google continues to simplify team structures to improve efficiency. So far, Google has accelerated towards this goal by establishing the AI research lab DeepMind, merging platform and device teams, adjusting senior management of the Knowledge & Information team, and restructuring the Gemini app and intelligent voice assistant application teams