AI is taking over at Google, and the company is making big changes to help it do it even faster. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Thursday that he will be making a number of changes, including the creation of a new team called “Platforms and Devices,” which will oversee all of Google’s Pixel products, all Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos and more. announced a major internal reorganization. The team will be led by Rick Osterloh, who was previously senior vice president of devices and services and oversaw all of Google’s hardware efforts. Hiroshi Lockheimer, the longtime head of Android, Chrome, and ChromeOS, will also be responsible for other projects within Google and his company at Alphabet.
This is a big change for Google, and it probably won’t be the last. According to Osterloh, there’s only one reason: AI. “This isn’t a secret, right?” he says. By unifying the teams, “we can do full-stack innovation when we need to,” Osterloh says. He gives the example of his Pixel camera: “It required deep knowledge of hardware systems, from the sensor to the ISP to every layer of the software stack. And at the time, all the early HDR and ML models that were doing camera processing…hardware/software/ I think the integration of AI really showed how AI can completely transform the user experience. And that’s even more true today.”
Osterloh points to GPUs as another example. Google is pouring resources into its Tensor product to keep up with the likes of Nvidia, and keeping the hardware and software close and aware of each other’s work makes it easier to improve quickly. This he says, he can try to do with two teams, but with one team he can do everything faster if he has one leader and he has one goal. .
As we speak, Osterloh and Lockheimer are sitting in Lockheimer’s office, talking to me via Google Meet. The two have been friends and colleagues for decades and have made it clear that the change is not the result of an internal power struggle. (Even if I brought it up as a joke, they shot me down right away for yelling.) They’ve been talking to Pichai for over two years about making this shift, and now it’s finally the right time. Lockheimer says he felt that way.
Osterloh says that by combining the teams, Google can move more quickly to integrate AI into all of its products. “We have a way to get the latest research and the latest models from DeepMind very quickly,” he said, adding that Jay Yagnik, a longtime researcher and engineer on Google’s AI team, is contributing in part. He also mentioned coming to his Osterloh team. To facilitate that exchange. One way he captures these changes is by simplifying the pipeline. Today, we have teams that do AI research and teams that do AI products. “In many cases, that means being able to figure out how to build new applications based on the output of the latest model and move people quickly to do that,” Osterloh continues. Google has been hampered in many ways by the AI revolution, but it recognizes that it needs to do whatever it can to move forward as quickly as possible.
Google has long carefully separated its own hardware efforts from working with the broader Android ecosystem to avoid privileging its own devices or complicating relationships with companies like Samsung. I have said that I am doing it. However, that relationship has changed over the past few years. Google’s hardware team has strived to both build great devices and show the rest of the Android world what’s possible next.
One way to capture these changes is to simplify your pipeline. Today, we have teams that do AI research and teams that do AI products.
But Osterloh was furious when I suggested that this reorganization might mean the end of the firewall between Pixel and Android. “We’ve always had separate teams between Android and our ecosystem partners and our own hardware efforts,” he says. Sameer Samat, who has been instrumental in running Android under Lockheimer, will now become president of the Android ecosystem. Lockheimer says Samat has all these ecological relationships and it’s all fine. And Cristiano Amon, his CEO at Qualcomm and one of the first to be briefed on the change, said in a statement: please calculate. ”
At the same time, it’s clear that Google is further strengthening its role as the tip of Android’s spear, especially as AI takes over the operating system. Google is already adding Gemini models and chatbots everywhere you can think of, and has been adding AI capabilities to the Pixel’s camera for the past two years, and is looking forward to how AI will change the way you use your phone. It’s clear that they have big plans for what they can do. Devices running Android Auto, Wear OS, ChromeOS, and everything else are important.
These changes appear to be part of an ongoing cycle at Google. Google is famous for enabling vast, nearly autonomous work environments, and it does so not just with Gmail, but with thousands of other messaging apps and poorly integrated products. and, from time to time, efforts that integrate around larger initiatives and increased profits. Co-founder Larry Page called it “more wood behind fewer arrows” in his 2011, when his big effort at the time was his Google Plus. Google will surely hope that its full-scale AI efforts will yield better results.
In some ways, this seems to be the path Osterloh has taken since he first joined Google in 2016. Google Assistant was all the rage at the time, and Pichai told anyone who would listen that he was betting the company on the idea of ”ambient.” He created a “personal Google” with “Computing”, a virtual assistant that helps you accomplish more in life. Osterloh’s job was to build a home for his Google Assistant, including a phone, speakers, VR headset, laptop, and smartwatch. Osterloh said he knew from the beginning that ultimately he was working on AI and that hardware was much more important to his AI-first Google than it was to his search-first Google. I am. “And the technology has evolved so much that it’s actually ready.”
Osterloh said the priorities will remain the same, but the pace of daily meetings will definitely change.In general, he says, the plan is just to make everything come true. Faster. To update our devices more frequently as our AI models improve. To launch new products with agility instead of bogging down all the processes and bureaucracy. “You can’t airdrop a new SOC into an existing product,” he says Osterloh. “But it is possible to design for longevity and update the software frequently.”
Google is in the midst of completely reinventing itself around AI, a technology that Pichai himself has said could be as important as fire. All Google-owned apps and all Google-managed platforms will be modified by Gemini. For that to work, Google itself, the company, its structure, and culture itself would have to change. It’s not always easy, but we clearly don’t have time to waste.
