24 Jan
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Google's 2024 goals leaked: the company's direction
Google's 7 goals for 2024 have been leaked: Focus on AI and job cuts. How will employees respond to these goals in light of cost-cutting and layoffs?
Google's seven goals for 2024 have been leaked, revealing a strong focus on artificial intelligence. This comes amid a period of downsizing and redundancies at the company.
Large companies often try to move as quietly as possible, especially those in the technology industry. But leaks are inevitable, so we often know a lot about new products and services before they officially debut. Even with that said, it's rare that we get an insight into a company's internal goals early in the year. This is exactly what happened this week when Google's seven goals for 2024 were leaked to The Verge.
In a memo sent out to all employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai detailed his roadmap for 2024. The list isn't surprising, but it confirms much of what we already expected from Google in 2024, like a focus on artificial intelligence.
The timing of this leak is interesting because it comes as Google faces another turning point. Almost a year to the day after the company cut 12,000 jobs in 2023, Google has cut more jobs in the past two weeks. The exact number is not known, but it is in the thousands. The layoffs have spanned several teams in 2024, such as the hardware AR and ad sales units. More importantly, Pichai said more layoffs could be expected throughout the year. This contrasts with the Google CEO's goal for 2024, at least in a way. He says one goal is to "build a Google that's extraordinary for Googlers," but the continuous job cuts have prompted current and former employees to criticize the company.
However, the last goal fits perfectly in line with Google's cuts. In addition to these points, artificial intelligence is predictably a focus for Google into 2024. Samsung's recent launch of the Galaxy S24 series of flagship phones included a lot of AI features, and Google centrally placed many of them. Google is also clearly focused on developing Gemini, its suite of AI models, and Bard, its AI-enabled chatbot.
According to Pichai's vision for 2024, more of that will continue. The rest of Google's goals for 2024 center around the typical goals of a consumer tech giant, like developing new products and growing as a company. We'll be curious to see how Google — and its employees — respond to these goals, given the cost-cutting measures and layoffs happening at the same time.
