Hugh Langley

A major internal reshuffle in Google's Android and Pixel groups highlights the company's rising stars.

AI companies like OpenAI and Google are turning to synthetic data to replace the real-world data they've depended on to train their AI models.

Google's AI Overviews have dropped off significantly in recent months – and gotten shorter – per a new study.

Google's Workspace group has lost another leader as VP Bob Frati departs to "explore other opportunities."

Google knows that losing its default position on the iPhone could have catastrophic consequences.

A data analysis reveals OpenAI has been on a hiring tear as it rolls out new updates and prepares for GPT-5.

At Google’s IO conference in May, executive Aparna Pappu showed off new AI features for the company Workspace productivity service.To make this technology really useful, though, users must enter special prompts that extract the best outputs from the company’s Gemini AI models.In search of ideas, Google held a competition for employees to suggest “golden prompts” for Workspace, according to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider. Prizes included gold bomber jackets and even cash. The goa…

At its IO developer conference in May, Google turned heads when it showed off a demo of Project Astra, a real-time AI assistant that could see and perceive the world around it. It could understand jokes, read code, and even remember where the user left their glasses. At one point, the user switched from using Astra through their smartphone to running it on a pair of augmented reality spectacles.The show-stopping moment led to some speculation that Google may have resurrected its Iris smart glass…

When Apple pulled back the curtain on its new AI features this week, much was made of the company’s partnership with OpenAI that’s set to put ChatGPT on millions of iPhones — a position Google had tried to negotiate for itself.But Apple and Google had for months been working together behind the scenes, with Google giving Apple access to its data centers to train the iPhone maker’s new AI models.For years, Apple has leaned on Google’s and Amazon’s cloud services to store data for its products. Fo…

Google’s Cloud unit made sweeping job cuts this week.Employees working across several Cloud teams were informed that their jobs were being eliminated, according to an internal document reviewed by Business Insider and an employee familiar with the matter, whose identity BI confirmed and who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.The total number of affected staff could not be learned, although the cuts appear to have hit Google Cloud’s “Go To Market” teams the hardest. One employee sa…

In April, Google indulged in one of its favorite pastimes: a reorg.Executive musical chairs have become all too common inside Alphabet. Still, this shake-up was one of the most dramatic in the company’s 25-year history. CEO Sundar Pichai announced he would smash together two of the company’s major units — platforms and devices — into a new supergroup that would hold Android, Chrome, and the gadgets Google builds, such as the Pixel phone. In a memo to staff, Pichai said the move would “turbocharg…

The prospect of a TikTok ban in the US might be a nightmare for millions of users and influencers, but it’s a dream for Google.Business Insider has learned that Google is trying to nudge advertisers to spend more on YouTube by highlighting the possibility that TikTok could be banned in the US.On April 24, President Joe Biden signed a bill intended to push Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app. If that doesn’t happen within nine months to a year, Apple and Google must pull TikTok fro…

On one side of the gravel road, a prairie’s worth of grass stretches toward distant wind turbines. On the other side, scattered eucalyptus trees dot the otherwise empty fields. All this nothing lies an hour north of San Francisco, far from the nearest subdivisions and schools and strip malls. It’s a specifically Californian kind of empty.But in Jan Sramek’s eyes, it’s full. Where others see only blue sky and dusty farmland, Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader, sees row houses and apartments. A…

Big tech companies have backed off green card applications in a big way because the process has become tougher and there’s less competition for talent.This situation is making it harder for foreign tech workers to stay in the US, and it may mean overseas candidates have to search far beyond Silicon Valley and New York City for jobs in the industry.Google stopped so-called PERM applications in January 2023, the same month it laid off 12,000 employees. PERM is a certification process run by the De…

As the artificial-intelligence wars heat up, Google says immigration rules must change if the US is to attract the talent needed to stay ahead.The search giant on Wednesday filed a letter to the US Department of Labor arguing for changes to rules on which types of jobs are considered scarce in the US.To get an employment-based green card, foreign-born employees often go through a process of permanent labor certification (referred to as PERM), in which their employer must make the case that there…

The Googleplex is in flux.CEO Sundar Pichai announced a series of re-orgs in a memo to staff on Thursday, and — surprise, surprise — Google says it’s all happening because of artificial intelligence.Pichai said the changes, which include merging different parts of the company, would help Google “simplify decisions” and move faster.This includes further merging its central AI teams. Last year, Google combined Brain, a group that sat within its AI Research group, with DeepMind to form a new super-…

If you think you’ve been seeing an awful lot more Reddit results lately when you search on Google, you’re not imagining things.The internet is in upheaval, and for website owners the rules of “winning” Google Search have never been murkier.Google’s generative AI search engine is coming from one direction. It’s creeping closer to mainstream deployment and bringing an existential crisis for SEOs and website makers everywhere.Coming from the other direction is an influx of posts from Reddit, Quora,…

Google is laying off more employees and restructuring some teams.Several teams across Google’s finance and real estate units have been affected, according to two current employees, who said staff had been informed of the cuts this week. One said that the affected teams in finance include Google’s Treasury, Business Services, and Revenue Cash Operations teams.It’s unclear if other parts of the company are affected or how many roles have been cut. One current employee said the changes were “pretty…

Microsoft is opening a new artificial-intelligence unit in London, putting itself firmly on the turf of its biggest AI rival: Google DeepMind.The announcement came just weeks after Microsoft hired the DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman to run its new AI division. In a blog post published Sunday, Suleyman said the new London unit would be run by the former DeepMind researcher Jordan Huffman.Microsoft already has offices in the UK’s capital and previously pledged to invest £2.5 billion in UK data…

The impact of remote work and artificial intelligence on jobs has never been more scrutinized.One company thinking about this is Whoop, a Boston healthtech startup that makes a popular wearable health tracker. The company has tried differentiating itself in a busy wearables market by targeting athletes and serious fitness enthusiasts. As its CEO, Will Ahmed, said, Whoop aims to “unlock human performance.“In 2021, the company raised $200 million at a $3.6 billion valuation in a funding round led…