Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, recently issued a warning to his employees, saying they should be prepared for more layoffs in the coming year as the tech company begins implementing more artificial intelligence.
Pichai is also the CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and he shared in a company memo with his employees this month that they would “remove layers [of its workforce]” in order to free up the company’s funds so it can invest in the “big priorities,” CBS Money Watch reported.
Google is expected to announce its AI goals for the year later this week, but in December, it launched Gemini, what it dubbed as the “biggest upgrade yet” to its AI chatbot Bard.
The battle comes as it continues to fight to catch up to other tech companies racing to make the best AI system. CNBC reported that Google has committed to investing $2 billion into Anthropic, a competitor of OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT.
Pichai did not specify what specific roles would be affected by the job cuts or how many would be eliminated. Last year, Google cut 12,000 roles in its hardware, core engineering, policy, shopping, and ad sales teams.
However, Pichai noted that they would be less extensive than last year’s, saying they would “not touch every team.”
“The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices,” Pichai wrote, CBS reported.
