On Thursday, Google announced a major reorganization, which included moving its current head of Search and Ads to a new position. Prabhakar Raghavan, who was the senior vice president in charge of Search, Ads, and other important segments, is now moving onto the role of Chief Technologist at the company.
Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai said in a statement that Raghavan decided it was time to make a big leap in his own career and is now returning to his “computer science roots and take on the role of Chief Technologist, Google.” Pichai also mentioned that in this role, he will partner closely with him and Google leads to provide technical direction, leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence.
Nick Fox will be replacing Raghavan, who has already been reporting to him anyways. So it’s another promotion from within.
Fox will now lead Google’s search, ads, geo, and commerce products. It’s important to note that during Fox’s time at Google, he has helped launch Google Fi and RCS messaging.
Gemini and Google Assistant teams get shuffled around too
While swapping out the executive in charge of Search and a few other products is huge, that’s not the only change announced today. Google also announced that a few other teams are being moved around, too. The division that was in charge of the Gemini app will join Google Deepmind under their CEO, Demis Hassabis, while the Google Assistant team will become part of Google’s platforms and devices team.
Pichai noted on these changes that “bringing the teams closer together will improve feedback loops, enable fast deployment of our new models in the Gemini app, make our post-training work proceed more efficiently and build on our great product momentum.”
Also moving the Assistant teams “focused on devices and home experiences” to the Platforms and Devices division makes more sense, and it will allow them to “sit closer to the product surfaces they’re building for and bring our AI-powered home initiatives into one team and focus on improving user experience.”