In a recent company-wide memo (via The edge), Google CEO Sundar Pichai outlined the tech giant’s ambitious goals for 2024, emphasizing not only a significant focus on artificial intelligence but also cost-cutting efforts.
In early 2023, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said revealed are plans for the company’s ‘Year of Efficiency’, and while the economy is starting to show signs of recovery, it’s clear that Google still wants to rethink its spending.
Pichai’s ultimate goal (out of seven) was “to improve the company’s speed, efficiency and productivity and achieve sustainable cost savings,” which left many Googlers fearful for their jobs.
Will Google cut more jobs?
At the forefront of Google’s priorities is delivering “the world’s most advanced, secure, and responsible Al.” The company has recently put the finishing touches on some of its own Gemini models, which are believed to pose a real threat to OpenAI’s latest GPT models.
The company’s second goal – “to improve knowledge, learning, creativity and productivity” – appears to be focused on its employees. Knowledge and technology workers worldwide have been the subject of many surveys in recent months, all of which point to reduced productivity and efficiency.
Other company goals outlined in the announcement include: “building the most useful personal computing platforms and devices;” “enabling organizations and developers to innovate on Google Cloud;” “offering the most trusted products and platforms in the world;” and “building a Google that is extraordinary for Googlers and the world.”
While ambitious, Google’s plans for 2024 are relatively vague and cover a lot of ground, including business customers, general consumers, and company employees, which could make it difficult for the company to prove it has these goals this time next year realised. .
The lack of definitive information also puts serious doubts about the security of Googlers’ jobs.
More than a thousand Googlers have already lost their jobs in the first three weeks of January, with one round of layoffs closely linked to the company’s use of artificial intelligence.