Due to AI advances, Google is overhauling its 30,000-person ad sales unit. The move followed the company’s largest layoff, 12,000 employees, earlier this year.
The Information reports that Google is reorganizing a big section of its 30,000-person ad sales operation due to its AI achievements. Google made its largest job cut ever this year, firing 12,000 workers.
According to the article, Google’s AI-based technologies may automatically recommend and develop new ads that work well for clients and require little employee involvement, eliminating many ad sales jobs.
Google introduced its AI-powered campaign planner, Performance Max, in 2021, but at Google I/O earlier this year, the firm added generative AI-based capabilities to the ad tool, making it easier to “create custom assets and scale them in a few clicks”.
According to The Information, more advertisers are adopting Performance Max, which eliminates the need for Google service-specific ad salespeople.
Google’s president of the Americas and Global Partners, Sean Downey, revealed the ad sales unit restructure last week. The executive did not indicate if the reorganization would lead to more job layoffs, reported The Information.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai discusses firing 12,000:
An employee asked Sundar Pichai in the meeting, “Almost a year ago, we made the difficult decision to cut staff. How did this decision affect growth, P&L, and morale?”
The Google CEO called it one of the “most difficult decisions for the company” and said it had a huge impact on employee morale. He said “At Google, we really haven’t had a moment quite like that in 25 years.”
Sundar Pichai called the decision “difficult but necessary”. Alphabet’s CEO told reporters that not cutting those jobs last year would have been “a worse decision down the line.”
“It would have weighed heavily on the company. Google CEO stated it would have been tough to establish the capacity to invest in regions in a year like this with such a large shift in the world.
Conclusion
Due to artificial intelligence advances, Google plans to reorganize much of its 30,000-person ad sales unit. This follows the company’s 12,000-person layoff earlier this year, its largest ever. AI-based systems that automatically recommend and develop new ads that work well for clients and require little employee involvement are eliminating many ad sales positions. Google’s president of the Americas and Global Partners, Sean Downey, revealed the restructuring internally but did not indicate if it would result in more layoffs. Google CEO Sundar Pichai called the decision “difficult but necessary” and said it would have been worse if the business hadn’t lost those jobs last year.
