The wave of layoffs at Google shows no signs of slowing down, with CEO Sundar Pichai confirming the news in a memo titled "2024 priorities and the year ahead."
"We have ambitious goals and will invest in our major priorities this year," wrote Pichai, as quoted by CNBC International on Thursday (1/18/2024).
One of the goals is to shift investments to the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Pichai stated that company leadership will soon communicate the technology goals for the year and publish the key objectives and results (OKRs) for 2024.
Pichai mentioned that for these massive investments, the company must make difficult choices, including eliminating roles and removing certain layers.
However, he promised that the layoffs would not be as extensive as last year, and they would not affect every team.
Last year, Google eliminated 12,000 positions, which accounted for about 6% of the total workforce worldwide. Besides layoffs, Google also downsized some facilities, such as laptops and equipment.
"To be frank, some teams will continue to make resource allocation decisions," said Pichai.
Google has been focusing on AI since ChatGPT gained popularity in late 2022. One of its endeavors was launching a chatbot named Bard.
Last month, Google released its largest AI model named Gemini. Its performance was claimed to surpass that of the GPT-4 model from the creator of ChatGPT, OpenAI.