Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan speaks at the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting in Washington, DC, Wednesday, January 17, 2024.
Julia Nicholson | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Google Longtime Google executive Nick Fox will replace Prabhakar Raghavan, the company’s head of search and advertising.
The move was announced by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who said in a statement Blog article On Thursday, Raghavan will assume the role of chief technologist after 12 years leading the entire search firm team. Raghavan will continue to report to Pichai as the new CTO, the company told CNBC in a statement.
“In this role, he will work closely with me and Google leadership to provide technical guidance and leadership,” Pichai wrote in the post. capabilities and develop our culture of technical excellence.”
The move comes as Google continues to reorganize its team to move faster in an artificial intelligence arms race that has the company facing increasing competition. The company is also dealing with several antitrust lawsuits related to its search and advertising businesses.
Fox has long been a member of Raghavan’s leadership team. Pichai said he will lead Google’s knowledge and information division, which includes the company’s search, advertising and commerce products.
Fox has been a Google employee since 2003 and in recent years served as vice president of product and design for the company’s Assistant products. He previously worked in the company’s advertising business.
“Over the past few years, Nick has been instrumental in developing Google’s artificial intelligence product roadmap and worked closely with Prabhakar,” Pichai wrote.
Raghavan has been leading the knowledge and information department since 2018.
In addition, Pichai also announced that the team developing Google Gemini applications, which includes Google’s AI direct-to-consumer products, will join Google DeepMind, led by AI director Demis Hassabis.
“Bringing the team closer together will improve the feedback loop, enabling rapid deployment of our new models within the Gemini app,” Pichai wrote.
The move also means the Assistant team focused on devices and home experiences will be moved to the Platforms and Devices group “so they can be closer to the surface of the products they are building,” Pichai wrote.
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