Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently called on his employees to prepare for a decisive 2025, marked by high stakes, increased competition and regulatory challenges.
During a strategy meeting on December 18, Sundar Pichai highlighted the importance of accelerating the tech giant’s efforts, particularly in the area of artificial intelligence (AI). He considers it essential for solving user problems. The CNBC media outlet obtained the audio of this meeting and presented the main points.
A critical year for Google
“2025 will be a critical year”declared the CEO of Google during this meeting. “We must be relentless in our focus on the benefits of this technology and on solving real-world user problems. ». The meeting, which took place at Google’s Mountain View headquarters and online, brought together employees at a time when the company faces growing pressures.
Despite strong revenues in areas like online ads and the cloud, Google is facing increased competition, particularly in its core business of online search. OpenAI in particular now offers to use its ChatGPT tool as a search engine.
Increasingly strict regulations
Google is also under the spotlight from regulators. In 2023, a federal judge ruled that Google illegally had a monopoly on the online search market. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has demanded that the company sell its Chrome browser and has filed other lawsuits over its advertising practices. In Europe, Google is required to comply with the Digital Markets Act and is the subject of an investigation by the European Commission.
“We are aware of the global surveillance we are experiencing”admitted Sundar Pichai during the meeting.
AI at the heart of strategy
Faced with the rise of players like OpenAI, supported by Microsoft, Google is banking on its Gemini AI model to remain competitive. The Gemini app, launched in 2023, is touted as Google’s next big platform, with a goal of reaching 500 million users.
“Deploying Gemini to consumers will be our biggest priority in 2025”said the CEO, while showing a graph where Gemini 1.5 outperformed competing models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. He, however, admitted that Google had fallen behind in some areas, while emphasizing the need to execute projects with excellence.
Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind (a company specializing in AI acquired by Google in 2014), detailed Google’s ambitions for Gemini and its evolution towards a universal assistant capable of operating on different devices and contexts. A prototype, called Project Astra, will be updated in the first half of 2025.
Strategic crossroads
For Google, the situation is critical. Even in Silicon Valley, some companies can go bankrupt, like Sun Microsystems. This American computer manufacturer and software publisher, the originator of Java, XML and Open Office, disappeared in 2010. In 2011, Mark Zuckerberg set up Facebook headquarters in the company’s former campus. Behind the Meta panel, we can still see the old Sun Microsystems panel. The billionaire would have left it so that his employees realize that a technological giant can disappear overnight…
“Constraints often encourage creativity,” said Sundar Pichai, calling on his teams to be ingenious and not rely solely on human resources to meet the challenges ahead. Google now finds itself at a strategic crossroads, determined to maintain its leadership in a rapidly changing industry.
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