Google executives, at a recent strategy meeting, emphasized the significance of 2025, highlighting the need to navigate increased competition, regulatory challenges, and rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. CEO Sundar Pichai stressed the urgency of capitalizing on AI's potential and solving real user problems.
Google executives held a 2025 strategy meeting with employees last week, setting the stage for a year of increased competition, regulatory hurdles and advancements in AI.Sundar Pichai told employees last week that"the stakes are high" for 2025, as the company faces increased competition and regulatory hurdles and contends with rapid advancements in artificial intelligence.
At a 2025 strategy meeting on Dec. 18, Pichai and other Google leaders, donning ugly holiday sweaters, hyped up the coming year, most notably as it pertains to what's coming in AI, according to audio obtained by CNBC."I think 2025 will be critical," Pichai said."I think it's really important we internalize the urgency of this moment, and need to move faster as a company. The stakes are high. These are disruptive moments. In 2025, we need to be relentlessly focused on unlocking the benefits of this technology and solve real user problems."Google has experienced since going public two decades ago. While areas like search ads and cloud produced strong revenue growth, competition picked up in Google's core markets, and the company facedits Chrome internet browser unit. In a separate case, the DOJ accused the company of illegally dominating online ad technology. That trial closed in September and awaits a judge ruling.issued a statement of objections over Google's ad tech practices, which the regulator provisionally found are impacting competition in the U.K."It comes with our size and success. It's part of a broader trend where tech is now impacting society at scale. So more than ever, through this moment, we have to make sure we don't get distracted."Google's search business still has dominant market share, but generative AI has served up all sorts of new ways for people to access online information, and has brought with it a host of new competitors.of its own. Perplexity is also promoting its AI-powered search service and recently closed a $500 million funding round at a Google is investing heavily to try and stay on top, principally through Gemini, its AI model. The Gemini app gives users access to a number of tools, including Google's chatbot. Pichai said"building big, new business" is a top priority. That includes the Gemini app, which executives said they see as Google's next app to reach half a billion users. The company currently has 15 apps that have hit that mark. "With the Gemini app, there is strong momentum, particularly over the last few months," Pichai said."But we have some work to do in 2025 to close the gap and establish a leadership position there as well."At the meeting, Pichai showed a chart of large language models, with Gemini 1.5 leading OpenAI's GPT and other competitors.He acknowledged that Google has had to play catchup. "In history, you don't always need to be first but you have to execute well and really be the best in class as a product," he said."I think that's what 2025 is all about." Executives took questions that were submitted by employees through Google's internal system. One comment read aloud by Pichai suggested that ChatGPT"is becoming synonymous to AI the same way Google is to search," with the questioner asking,"What's our plan to combat this in the upcoming year? Or are we not focusing as much on consumer facing LLM?" For the answer, Pichai turned to DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis, who said that teams are going to"turbo charge" the Gemini app and that the company has seen progress in the number of users since launching the app in February. He said"the products themselves are going to evolve massively over the next year or two." Hassabis described a vision for a universal assistant that"can seamlessly operate over any domain, any modality or any device."Another employee question asked whether Google will be able to get AI products to scale without charging $200 a month"like other companies." "Right now, we don't have any plans for this kind of subscription level," Hassabis responded, adding that he thinks the $20 monthly charge for Gemini advanced is a good value."I wouldn't necessarily say never but there are no plans for that at the moment." Toward the end of the meeting, Google welcomed to the stage Josh Woodward, the head of Google Labs. He took the microphone as the Zombie Nation song"Kernkraft 400" played loudly in the background. "I'm going to try to do six demos in eight minutes," said Woodward, who's known for his high level of energy. Woodward started by showing off Jules, a coding assistant that's in a trusted tester's program. He said,"It's where the future of software development is headed." Woodward then shifted to AI notetaking product NotebookLM, which featured a series of updates in 2024, including a podcasting tool. Woodward demonstrated how the company is trying a new feature that allows the user to"call in" to a podcast. He then moved onto Project Mariner, an AI-powered multi-tasking Chrome extension. Woodward asked it to add the top restaurants fromto the Maps app. After a brief pause, the demo successfully worked, leading employees in attendance to erupt in applause. Throughout the meeting, Pichai kept reminding employees of the need to"stay scrappy." Google has gone through an extensive phase of cost cutting that included eliminating about 6% of its workforce in 2023 and a continued focus on efficiency. As of the end of the third quarter, Alphabet had 181,269 employees, down about 5% from the end of 2022."In early Google days, you look at how the founders built our data centers, they were really really scrappy in every decision they made," Pichai said."Often, constraints lead to creativity. Not all problems are always solved by headcount."OpenAI says it needs 'more capital than we’d imagined' as it lays out for-profit plan
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