Google offers buyouts to more workers amid AI-driven tech upheaval and antitrust uncertainty
It's not clear how many employees are affected, but the offers were made to staff in Google's search, advertising, research and engineering units, according to The Wall Street Journal. Google employs most of the nearly 186,000 workers on the worldwide payroll of its parent company, Alphabet Inc.
'Earlier this year, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance for U.S.-based Googlers, and several more are now offering the program to support our important work ahead," a Google spokesperson, Courtenay Mencini, said in a statement.
'A number of teams are also asking remote employees who live near an office to return to a hybrid work schedule in order to bring folks more together in-person,' Mencini said.
Google is offering the buyouts while awaiting for a federal judge to determine its fate after its ubiquitous search engine was declared an illegal monopoly as part of nearly 5-year-old case by the U.S. Justice Department. The company is also awaiting remedy action in another antitrust case involving its digital ad network.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta is weighing a government proposal seeking to ban Google paying more than $26 billon annually to Apple and other technology companies to lock in its search engine as the go-to place for online information, require it to share data with rivals and force a sale of its popular Chrome browser. The judge is expected to rule before Labour Day, clearing the way for Google to pursue its plan to appeal last year's decision that labeled its search engine as a monopoly.
The proposed dismantling coincides with ongoing efforts by the Justice Department to force Google to part with some of the technology powering the company's digital ad network after a federal judge ruled that its digital ad network has been improperly abusing its market power to stifle competition to the detriment of online publishers.
Like several of its peers in Big Tech, Google has been periodically reducing its headcount since 2023 as the industry began to backtrack from the hiring spree that was triggered during pandemic lockdowns that spurred feverish demand for digital services.
Google began its post-pandemic retrenchment by laying off 12,000 workers in early 2023 and since then as been trimming some divisions to help bolster its profits while ramping up its spending on artificial intelligence — a technology driving an upheaval that is starting to transform its search engine into a more conversational answer engine.
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Time of India
24 minutes ago
- Time of India
AI researchers are negotiating $250 million pay packages, just like NBA stars
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After many discussions, some of them urged him to take the deal -- which he Valley's AI talent wars have become so frenzied -- and so outlandish -- that they increasingly resemble the stratospheric market for NBA AI researchers are being recruited as if they are Steph Curry or LeBron James, with nine-figure compensation packages structured to be paid out over several years. To navigate the froth, many of the 20-somethings have turned to unofficial agents and entourages to strategize. And they are playing hardball with the companies to get top dollar, much as basketball players shop for the best deals from difference is that unlike NBA teams, deep-pocketed AI companies like Meta, OpenAI and Google have no salary caps. (Curry's most recent four-year contract with the Golden State Warriors was $35 million less than Deitke's deal with Meta.) 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As Meta, Microsoft, Google and OpenAI have poached employees from one another, job announcements have been posted online with graphics resembling major sports trades, made by the online streaming outlet TBPN , which hosts an ESPN-like show about the tech and business world."BREAKING: Microsoft has poached over 20 staff members from DeepMind over the last six months," read one recent TBPN post about Microsoft's hiring from Google's DeepMind Hays, a co-host of TBPN, said that as tech and AI have gone mainstream, more people are following the recruitment fray "the way our friends from college obsess over sports -- the personalities, the players, the leagues."On Wednesday, Zuckerberg said Meta planned to continue throwing money at AI talent "because we have conviction that superintelligence is going to improve every aspect of what we do." 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By 2014, Peter Lee, Microsoft's head of research, was likening the market to that for up-and-coming pro football players, many of whom were making about $1 million a year."Last year, the cost of a top, world-class deep learning expert was about the same as a top NFL quarterback prospect," Lee told Bloomberg BusinessWeek at the time, referring to a type of AI specialist. "The cost of that talent is pretty remarkable."The leverage that AI researchers have in negotiating job terms has only increased since OpenAI released the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022, setting off a race to lead the technology. They have been aided by scarcity: Only a small pool of people have the technical know-how and experience to work on advanced artificial intelligence because AI is built differently from traditional software. These systems learn by analyzing enormous amounts of digital data. 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But he added that OpenAI had not matched Meta's offers because "I personally think that in order to work here, you have to believe in the upside of OpenAI."OpenAI declined to comment. (The Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement in relation to news content related to AI systems. The two companies have denied the claims.)Not all of Meta's overtures have succeeded. The company has been rebuffed by some researchers, two people said, partly because Zuckerberg's vision for artificial intelligence was unclear compared to those at other the frenzy has allowed even little-known researchers like Deitke to chart their own who recently dropped out of a computer science Ph.D. program at the University of Washington , had moonlighted at a Seattle AI lab called the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. There, he led the development of a project called Molmo, an AI chatbot that juggles images, sounds and text -- the kind of system that Meta is trying to November, Deitke and several Allen Institute colleagues founded Vercept, a startup that is trying to build AI agents, which can use other software on the internet to autonomously perform tasks. With about 10 employees, Vercept has raised $16.5 million from investors such as former Google chief executive Eric came Deitke's back-and-forth with Zuckerberg. After Deitke accepted Meta's roughly $250 million four-year offer, Vercept's CEO posted on social media, "We look forward to joining Matt on his private island next year."
Economic Times
an hour ago
- Economic Times
Even OpenAI's chairman struggles to keep up with AI: Bret Taylor calls the once-in-a-lifetime boom ‘insane'
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Business Standard
3 hours ago
- Business Standard
CCI widens antitrust probe against Google in online ad tech segment
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