In a recent company-wide memo (via The Verge), Google CEO Sundar Pichai outlined the tech giant’s ambitious goals for 2024, emphasizing not only a significant focus on artificial intelligence, but also cost-saving efforts.
In early 2023, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed his plans for the company’s “Year of Efficiency,” and while the economy has started to show signs of recovery, it’s clear that Google still wants to consider its spending.
Pichai’s final goal (of seven) was to “improve company velocity, efficiency, and productivity, and deliver durable cost savings,” leaving many Googlers in fear of their jobs.
Will Google cut more jobs?
At the forefront of Google’s priorities is the delivery of “the world’s most advanced, safe, and responsible Al.” The company recently lifted the wraps off a few of its own Gemini models, which are believed to be a real threat to OpenAI’s latest GPT models.
The company’s second goal – to “improve knowledge, learning, creativity, and productivity” – looks to be aimed at its workers. Knowledge and tech workers globally have been the subject of many studies in recent months, all pointing toward reduced productivity and efficiency.
Other company goals outlined in the announcement include: “build[ing] the most helpful personal computing platforms and devices;” “enabl[ing] organizations and developers to innovate on Google Cloud;” “provid[ing] the world’s most trusted products and platforms;” and “build[ing] a Google that’s extraordinary for Googlers and the world."
Though ambitious, Google’s plans for 2024 are relatively vague and cover a lot of ground, including business customers, general consumers, and company employees, which may make it hard for the company to prove that it has realized any of those goals this time next year.
The lack of definitive information also puts a big question mark over the security of Googlers' jobs.
More than one thousand Googlers have already lost their jobs during the first three weeks of January, with one round of layoffs linking closely with the company’s deployment of artificial intelligence.
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