The company's struggles come as Gartner predicts that search engine volumes will drop 25% by 2026 due to AI chatbots and other virtual agents. This could be a pivotal moment for Google, similar to when Microsoft missed out on the smartphone revolution under Steve Ballmer's leadership. Google's struggles with the changing tech industry landscape have resulted in more than $2.1 billion spent on layoffs last year, and while its digital ads and cloud computing businesses are growing, Search remains its primary source of revenue.
Key takeaways:
- Google has faced criticism and calls for CEO Sundar Pichai to step down due to issues with its AI chatbots, Bard and Gemini, which have been seen as inferior to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
- Gemini's AI image generation tool was particularly criticized for being 'too woke' and historically inaccurate, leading to it being pulled from the chatbot until it can be fixed.
- Analyst Ben Thompson suggests that Google's culture needs a major shift, accusing the company of being too 'timid' in the AI race and suggesting that it should dominate the field due to its research and infrastructure.
- Google's struggles with the changing tech industry have led to significant layoffs and a reliance on Search as its primary source of revenue, despite growth in its digital ads and cloud computing businesses.