Google's 2024 Goal: To Become the World's Most Advanced, Secure, and Responsible AI Provider
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Google recently internally announced its corporate goals for 2024, with artificial intelligence topping the list. According to a document leaked to The Verge by Alex Heath, Google's primary goal for 2024 is to "provide the world's most advanced, secure, and responsible artificial intelligence."
Other goals include:
- Enhancing knowledge, learning, creativity, and productivity; - Create useful personal computing platforms and devices;
- Empower businesses and developers to innovate in Google Cloud;
- Deliver the world's most trusted products and platforms;
- Build an "excellent" Google for employees and the world. The last goal on the list is to 'increase company speed, efficiency, and productivity, and achieve lasting cost savings,' which hints at the possibility of more layoffs. Since early January, it has been reported that Google has laid off thousands of employees across various departments.
In a separate internal memo, Pichai mentioned this year's 'ambitious goals' and 'important tasks.' To make room for investments, 'difficult choices' must be made to improve efficiency. According to the memo, the scale of layoffs is expected to be smaller than last year, when Google laid off approximately 12,000 employees in January.
In terms of AI technology and deployment, Google is currently far behind Microsoft and OpenAI. According to benchmarks, the Gemini model launched last year barely compares to OpenAI's models, while OpenAI is reportedly already working on its next major upgrade, GPT-4. In terms of productization, like Microsoft, Google is trying to integrate artificial intelligence into existing products, such as its business applications, Pixel smartphones, and generative AI search.
However, Google has yet to launch a standalone AI product as successful as ChatGPT. There are rumors that Google is developing a new chatbot based on its most powerful Gemini Ultra model. But so far, Google's Bard chatbot has lagged far behind ChatGPT in terms of user numbers.
With OpenAI's collaboration driving Microsoft's cloud business growth faster than Google's, this could be a major pain point for Google. Large tech companies see cloud computing as the next growth horizon. From Google's perspective, the positive aspect is that the disruption of its search business by chatbots, which some anticipated in early 2023, did not occur. Nevertheless, AI-generated spam is putting pressure on the quality of Google Search.