--- title: "As Google Pivots to AI, CEO Warns He Will Fire Even More Staff" description: "Google has laid off more than a thousand people since January 10th — and according to CEO Sundar Pichai, there will be more firings." date: "2024-01-18" modified: "2024-01-18" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-ceo-ai-pivot-layoffs" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Google" tags: - "Google" - "layoffs" - "sundar pichai" - "the digest" --- # As Google Pivots to AI, CEO Warns He Will Fire Even More Staff ![Google has laid off more than a thousand people since January 10th — and according to CEO Sundar Pichai, there will be more firings.]() *\Image: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty / Futurism\* ## Be Evil Google has laid off more than a thousand people since January 10 — and according to CEO Sundar Pichai, there will be more firings in the future as the company pushes forward with its AI pivot. "We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year," Pichai told Google's staff in a company-wide email [reviewed by *The Verge*](). "The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices." Those layoffs, as prior reporting [from *Business Insider*]() and [*Axios*]() indicates, took place across several departments. Hundreds were in the company's advertising and customer sales teams, while others impacted the Google Assistant, Fitbit, and hardware verticals. In the more recent memo, the CEO said that although the more recent and forthcoming "role eliminations" will not be "at the scale of last year’s reductions" — a reference to the [12,000 jobs Google cut]() around this time last year — the company will continue down the path of "removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas." ## Heel Turn Google's forthcoming "layer-removal" comes on the heels of the company's [tumultuous 2023](), which along with the 12,000 cuts at the beginning of the year saw it pivot to AI much like its [peers]() and [competitors](). Indeed, as the [*New York Times* reported]() based on insider interviews late last year, the company's pivot to AI was made hastily as OpenAI's ChatGPT — and its [alliance with Microsoft ]()— threatened to leave more established tech players else in its dust. Just before Christmas 2022, the *NYT*'s reporting explains, the company's top lawyer summoned executives to deliver a directive: that their teams were to drop whatever they had previously been working on and begin developing a slate of AI products immediately, per Pichai's orders. Just over a month later, those 12,000 employees were axed, and now we appear to be seeing the continued toll of that rapid decision-making process. As [*Axios* aptly pointed out]() in its own analysis of the 2024 Google layoffs, it seems less that people are being [replaced by AI itself]() and more that they are being replaced with smaller teams of people who are good with the technology as the company adjusts course. It's hard to say how those AI-adept new workers feel about their roles, but it seems likely they're essentially building the tech that will eventually replace them — and that can't feel good. **More on Google:** [*Image Database Powering Google's AI Contains Explicit Images of Children*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()