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Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gestures during a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, January 22, 2020.
Fabrice COFFRINI | AFP | fake images
Google CEO Sundar Pichai He told employees last week that “the stakes are high” for 2025 as the company faces increased competition and regulatory hurdles and grapples with rapid advances in artificial intelligence.
At a 2025 strategy meeting on Dec. 18, Pichai and other Google leaders, wearing ugly Christmas sweaters, touted the year ahead, especially as it relates to what’s coming in AI, according to audio obtained by CNBC.
“I think 2025 will be critical,” Pichai said. “I think it’s really important that we internalize the urgency of this moment and that we need to move faster as a company. The stakes are high. These are disruptive moments. In 2025, we must focus relentlessly on unlocking the benefits of this technology and solving real problems of users.”
Some employees attended the meeting in person at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, and others tuned in virtually.
Pichai’s comments come after a year filled with some of the most intense pressure Google has experimented since going public two decades ago. While areas such as search ads and cloud produced strong revenue growth, competition increased in Google’s core markets and the company faced internal challenges including culture clashes and concerns about Pichai’s vision for the future.
Furthermore, regulation is now stricter than ever.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google illegally has a monopoly in the search market. In November, the Justice Department asked that Google be forced to divest your Chrome internet browser unit. In a separate case, the Justice Department accused the company of illegally dominating online advertising technology. That trial concluded in September and awaits the judge’s ruling.
That same month, Great Britain competition watchdog issued a statement of objections over Google’s advertising technology practices, which the regulator provisionally found to be impacting competition in the UK.
“It is not lost on me that we are facing scrutiny around the world,” Pichai said. “It comes with our size and success. It’s part of a broader trend where technology is now impacting society on a large scale. So, more than ever, right now, we need to make sure we don’t get distracted.”
A Google spokesperson declined to comment.
Google’s search business still has a dominant market share, but generative AI has offered all sorts of new ways for people to access information online and brought with it a host of new competitors.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT kicked off the hype cycle in late 2022, and investors including microsoft Since then, they have propelled the company to a valuation of $157 billion. In July, OpenAI announced that it would launch a search engine own. Perplexity is also promoting its AI-based search service and recently closed a $500 million funding round in a $9 billion valuation.
Google is investing heavily to try to stay on top, mainly through Gemini, its artificial intelligence model. The Gemini app gives users access to a number of tools, including Google’s chatbot.
Pichai said “building great new businesses” is a top priority. That includes the Gemini app, which executives said they see as the next Google app to reach 500 million users. The company currently has 15 applications that have reached that mark.
“With the Gemini app, there is strong momentum, particularly in recent months,” Pichai said. “But we have work to do in 2025 to close the gap and establish a leadership position there as well.”
“Expanding Gemini on the consumer side will be our biggest goal next year,” Pichai added later.
“You don’t always have to be first”
At the meeting, Pichai showed a chart of large language models, with Gemini 1.5 leading OpenAI’s GPT and other competitors.
“I hope there will be some back and forth” in 2025, Pichai said. “I think we’ll be state-of-the-art.”
He acknowledged that Google has had to catch up.
“In history, you don’t always have to be first, but you have to execute well and really be best in class as a product,” he said. “I think that’s what 2025 is about.”
Executives answered questions submitted by employees through Google’s internal system. A comment read aloud by Pichai suggested that ChatGPT “is becoming synonymous with AI in the same way that Google is search,” and the questioner asked: “What is our plan to combat this in the next year? Or Are we not focusing so much on the consumer? Are you facing an LLM?”
For the answer, Pichai turned to DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis, who said teams are going to “speed up” the Gemini app and that the company has seen gains in user numbers since launching the app in February. He said that “the products themselves are going to evolve enormously over the next two years.”
Hassabis described a vision of a universal assistant that “can operate seamlessly in any domain, any modality, or any device.”
Project Astra, Google’s experimental version of the universal assistant that the company announced in May, it will be updated in the first half of the year.
Another question from an employee was whether Google will be able to scale AI products without charging $200 a month “like other companies.”
“Right now, we don’t have any plans for this type of subscription level,” Hassabis responded, adding that he thinks the $20 monthly charge for Gemini advanced is a good value. “I wouldn’t necessarily say never, but there are no plans for that at this time.”
Toward the end of the meeting, Google welcomed Josh Woodward, head of Google Labs, to the stage. He took the microphone as Zombie Nation’s song “Kernkraft 400” played loudly in the background.
“I’m going to try to do six demonstrations in eight minutes,” said Woodward, known for his high energy level.
Woodward began by showing Jules, a coding assistant who is in the trusted tester program. He said: “It’s where the future of software development is headed.”
Woodward then moved on to the AI note-taking product NotebookLM, which introduced a series of updates in 2024, including a podcasting tool. Woodward demonstrated how the company is testing a new feature that allows a user to “call in” to a podcast.
He then moved on to Project Mariner, a multitasking Chrome extension powered by artificial intelligence. Woodward asked him to add the best restaurants in tripadvisor to the Maps application. After a brief pause, the demonstration ran successfully, prompting the employees present to burst into applause.
Throughout the meeting, Pichai continued to remind employees of the need to “stay alert.” Google has gone through an extensive cost-cutting phase that included eliminating around 6% of its workforce in 2023 and a continued focus on efficiency.
At the end of the third quarter, Alphabet had 181,269 employees, about 5% fewer than at the end of 2022.
At one point, Pichai referenced the founders of Google. Larry’s Page and Sergey Brinwho founded the company 26 years ago, long before cloud computing or artificial intelligence tools existed.
“In the early days of Google, if you look at how the founders built our data centers, they were very tough in every decision they made,” Pichai said. “Limitations often lead to creativity. Not all problems are always solved by having people.”
