Google replaces search and advertising chief, replacing 12-year-old Prabhakar Raghavan as chief technology officer

On October 17, 2024 local time, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, announced the retirement of Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president of the company's search and advertising division, who had been in charge of the company for 12 years. Raghavan will become the new Chief Technology Officer, and Nick Fox will take over as his successor.

Changes across Knowledge & Information and Gemini app teams
https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/changes-knowledge-information-gemini-app-deepmind/

Google replaces executive in charge of Search and advertising | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/17/google-replaces-executive-in-charge-of-search-and-advertising/

Google is replacing the exec in charge of Search and ads - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272786/google-search-prabhakar-raghavan-nick-fox

It was announced that Raghavan, who has led the development of Google's search engine and advertising products for 12 years, will step down as head of the search and advertising division and become the company's chief technology officer. Regarding this personnel change, CEO Pichai explained, 'Prabhakar has decided that it is time to take a major leap in his career. After leading Google teams for 12 years, Prabhakar will return to his roots in computer science to assume the role of Google's chief technology officer. In this role, Prabhakar will work closely with me and other Google leaders to provide technical direction and leadership and to foster our technology culture.'

Raghavan led the Gmail team and oversaw the release of Smart Reply and Smart Compose , the first AI features in the email service, as well as Immersive View for Google Maps, Circle to Search , and AI Summary, which provides AI summaries on search results pages.

Google's AI-driven summary feature that clearly outlines search results now supports Japanese - GIGAZINE

Regarding Fox, who will succeed Raghavan as head of search and advertising, CEO Pichai said, 'He has been a key contributor to defining Google's AI product roadmap and has worked closely with Prabhakar and his leadership team.'

Fox has contributed to the launch of Google Fi , an MVNO service provided by Google, as well as RCS products.

In addition to these personnel changes, CEO Pichai announced that the Gemini app team, led by Sissy Xiao, will join Google DeepMind, led by Demis Hassabis. Regarding the reason for merging the Google DeepMind and Gemini app teams, CEO Pichai said, 'We will improve the feedback loop, enable faster deployment of new models in the Gemini app, and make post-training more efficient, further increasing product momentum.'

It was also announced that the teams developing Google Assistant and Google Home products would join Google's Platform and Devices team. Regarding the integration of the teams, CEO Pichai explained, 'We will be able to consolidate our AI-powered home initiatives into one team and focus on improving the user experience.'