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Google has officially made it clear that it has no plans to replace its ad vendors with AI.
Philipp Schindler, Google’s senior vice president and chief business officer, emphasized that recent organizational restructurings were aimed at improving the efficiency of services.
In addition, he emphasized that the continued development of new AI solutions should enable its customers to grow and achieve returns on their investments at scale.
What Google says. During the Alphabet 2023 Q4 earnings call, Schindler said:
- “I want to be clear: as we restructure, there is always an opportunity to be more efficient and smarter in the way we serve and grow our customers.”
- “We are not restructuring because AI is taking away roles that are important here. But we see significant opportunity here with our AI-powered solution to actually deliver incredible ROI at scale, and that’s why we’re making some of those adjustments.”
- “So I see the intensity of the sales force as a stronger focus for the future.”
Why we care. Advertisers have expressed their concerns about this communication problems with Google staff, fearing that things would get worse if AI replaced human channels. However, Google denied its intention to replace human communication channels with advertisers using AI.
Mass layoffs. Google made headlines Lay off 12,000 employees last year, a surprising move given the company’s record profits. Additionally, Google recently announced plans to make cuts hundreds more rolls, specifically within the ad sales department, earlier this month. The mass layoffs have proven costly for Google, with the company confirming it spent $2.1 billion on severance and other expenses last year alone.
Rumors of an AI takeover. The massive layoffs led to speculation about the possible replacement of staff with AI – particularly within Google’s Global Customer Solutions (GCS) team, which is responsible for serving every customer, from large global companies to small businesses. Contrary to these speculations, Schindler confirmed that GCS is in fact Google’s fastest-growing channel, which is why Google is actually making adjustments to ensure more resources can be allocated to “dynamically provide the right treatment for every customer.”
New AI offering. Google sooner discussed with Search Engine Land how it is testing new AI capabilities to provide greater support to advertisers. In particular, it tested new features in the Ads Help Center to help customers resolve issues more efficiently. Importantly, these AI-driven features are not intended to replace staff; instead, they are designed to provide extra support.
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Deep dive. Read our full report at Google’s Q4 2023 income for more information.
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