Team relocations and massive reorganizations are nothing new when it comes to large businesses, and Google is no exception. On Thursday, the company announced that it would be reorganizing some of its teams, including moving its Gemini app team over to DeepMind. This all seems to be for the sake of streamlining the teams and putting AI in the fast lane, but this could be an indicator that Google is secretly playing catch-up with the other runner in the AI race, OpenAI.
This was a pretty big shake-up, and it seems that Google moving some people to new positions. As mentioned before, the Gemini app division is moving over to DeepMind. Along with that, the Assistant team is moving over to the Platform & Devices team. Rounding things out, Prabhakar Raghavan, who was in the Knowledge & Information department is now the company’s Chief Technologist, and Nick Fox is leading the K&I team.
The most notable move has to be the Gemini app team. Pichai said that this move was to “improve feedback loops, enable fast deployment of our new models in the Gemini app,” in a blog post. So, the company wants to put AI in the express lane so that it can more efficiently launch its AI tools.
Alarm bells are sounding
Let’s face it, we can’t take what executives of large corporations say at face value. We’re always presented with a public-friendly explanation for whatever happens within the company. Reorganizations like these tend to be for the sake of “simplifying” the business structure, this is something that Pichai said.
But, we’re usually fed explanations like these when the truth is not nice to hear. The thing is that Google has been playing catch-up to OpenAI, and it has been since ChatGPT hit the market. This move smells of urgency, as Google is struggling to keep up with the competition.
Undoubtedly, ChatGPT is the most popular AI platform on the web. According to a recent report, it crossed 250 million weekly users recently. No other company was able to claim that. Gemini is integrated into a much larger ecosystem of Google products. However, people still opt to go for ChatGPT over Gemini. Not only that but the number of people using ChatGPT is rising.
It’s not just about the numbers
We can’t deny that the number of people using Gemini is also rising, but it’s not just about the adoption rate. Obviously, every time these companies release new models, they’re pitted against one another. When GPT-4o was introduced, it was instantly thrown into the ring with Gemini 1.5 Pro. Just like with other tests, OpenAI’s AI came out as the winner. The GPT models always seem to outsmart Google’s models in terms of capabilities.
Moving the Gemini app team over to DeepMind, a company that’s dedicated to AI development means that the alarm bells are sounding over at Google. The company is looking for a way to get ahead of the competition. Google is more than an AI company. It’s a search company, an ad company, a software company, a hardware company, and a company developing a quantum computer among other things. While AI has been a major focus for the company over the years, Google is spread out over several industries.
On the other hand, OpenAI is a dedicated AI company. It can dedicate all of its resources to training and developing newer and more powerful AI models. This is why it’s been able to launch some game-changing AI tech.
So, moving the Gemini app division over to a dedicated AI company might be a step in the right direction for Google. We’re not sure what this move will do for the app or if more Gemini divisions will move over to DeepMind.
Will Google ever catch up?
Google has been playing catch-up ever since the beginning of the Gen-AI era, and moving the Gemini app division over to DeepMind seems like a hasty move to boost its standing in the AI market. The question is whether it’s going to be worth it.
Google has a reputation for launching half-baked AI products and delivering fixes afterward. This “fix it in post” attitude has led to a pretty poor perception of the company. Sure, ChatGPT hallucinates, but how many controversies has Google gone through with its AI? Bard’s initial hallucination during its unveiling, Imagen generating racially inaccurate depictions of historical figures, and let’s not forget the whole glue-on-pizza debacle. OpenAI undoubtedly has its drama, but its controversies don’t concern the user-facing product.
What makes this worse is the fact that Google’s employees spoke out about how it handles its AI releases. They confirmed that the company prioritized quick releases over quality. This is one reason why it’s tough for the company to steal users away from OpenAI. This is tough to believe because Gemini has been working its way into more of Google’s apps. People will inadvertently use Gemini while searching through Gmail or typing messages on Google Messages, but they’d still choose to go to ChatGPT for their hardcore AI applications.
Household name
ChatGPT is THE household name when it comes to AI. It’s become the default term that people use to refer to chatbots in general; ironically, this is just like how Google is the default term used when people refer to simply looking something up on the internet.
So, stealing OpenAI’s thunder won’t be an easy task. Google hopes that rolling out features quicker will help it do this. Moving the Gemini app team over to DeepMind was to enable the company to launch features faster and more efficiently. However, ChatGPT is the goliath in the AI space and, no matter how good Gemini is, it still has ChatGPT’s massive fan base to compete with. 250 million is a large number of users to take on. It’s like OnePlus trying to take on the iPhone. Apple’s device has been grandfathered in as the de facto smartphone to buy.
No longer a leader
Moving its Gemini app division just shows that Google might not be the leader in the AI market it once was. Just a couple of years ago, Google was at the top of the AI pecking order with Google Assistant showing up Siri, Alexa, and Bixby.
Now, the company is playing second fiddle to a newcomer in the tech field. It declared a code red the moment that ChatGPT came out and, while some of that initial urgency has died down, Google is still worried about what ChatGPT could do to its business. With SearchGPT around the corner, it’s only a matter of time before OpenAI starts to really do some damage to Google’s business.
