Google Names Nick Fox New Search Head, Prabhakar Raghavan Chief Technologist In AI Reshuffle

(RTTNews) - Tech major Google LLC announced reshuffle to its group structure and leadership roles in Artificial Intelligence to prepare its Knowledge & Information team for the Gemini era. With the move, the company aims to strengthen its race in AI, which moves faster than any other technology, amid surging competition.

Prabhakar Raghavan, who has been leading Knowledge & Information, which includes Search, Ads, Geo, and Commerce products, since 2018, has been named as Google's Chief Technologist. Further, longtime Google executive Nick Fox will succeed Raghavan to lead Knowledge & Information.

In a blog post, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said, "Prabhakar has decided it's time to make a big leap in his own career. After 12 years leading teams across Google, he'll return to his computer science roots and take on the role of Chief Technologist, Google. In this role, he'll partner closely with me and Google leads to provide technical direction and leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence."

Google noted that in order to keep increasing the pace of progress in AI, it has been making shifts to simplify structures, including the creation of Google DeepMind and the joining of the Platforms & Devices teams.

The company now said the Gemini app team led by Sissie Hsiao will join Google DeepMind under Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind.

According to the company, bringing the teams closer together will improve feedback loops, enable fast deployment of new models in the Gemini app, make post-training work proceed more efficiently and build on its great product momentum.

The Assistant teams focused on devices and home experiences will move to Platforms & Devices so they can sit closer to the product surfaces they're building for and bring AI-powered home initiatives into one team and focus on improving user experience.

In the AI, Pichai noted that the company has been making progress, with NotebookLM with Audio Overviews going viral, adding more ways to find information in Search and Lens, and launching a revamped Google Shopping for the AI era.

Google also is helping doctors use AI to detect diabetic retinopathy, with 600,000 screenings and counting.

Google's new Chief Technologist, Raghavan, previously had been leading Research, Workspace, Ads, and K&I over the past few years. He led the Gmail team in launching Smart Reply and Smart Compose as early examples of using AI to improve products, and took Gmail and Drive past 1 billion users. Across K&I, he and his team achieved significant growth and innovation, from launching AI Overviews, to introducing new search modalities like Circle to Search, video understanding, and "shop what you see" in Lens, the company noted.

Further, Fox, over the past few years, has been instrumental in shaping Google's AI product roadmap and collaborating closely with Raghavan and his leadership team on K&I's strategy.