Google will mix the software program division answerable for Android cell software program and the Chrome browser with the {hardware} division recognized for Pixel smartphones and Fitbit wearables, the corporate mentioned Thursday. It’s a part of a broader plan to integrate artificial intelligence extra extensively all through the corporate.
In a letter to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned the modifications will “turbocharge the Android and Chrome ecosystems” whereas serving to to spur innovation.
The choice will place each operations underneath the oversight of Rick Osterloh, a Google government who beforehand oversaw the corporate’s {hardware} group. Not way back, Google insulated Android improvement from the {hardware} division, saying it wished to keep away from giving its telephone designers an unfair benefit over the opposite main smartphone makers who used Android — together with Samsung and Motorola, in addition to Chinese language corporations equivalent to Oppo and Xiaomi.
Then just a few years in the past, Google began to place the Pixel as a flagship for demonstrating what AI may accomplish and leaned closely into creating options that would exhibit its potential. That meant extra integration of AI {hardware} and software program to energy these options on cell units.
In an interview with The Verge, a tech publication, Osterloh famous that AI is the first motive for bringing collectively Google’s shopper {hardware} and software program engineers. He argued that telephone know-how is already rising extra depending on AI, citing the event of the Pixel digicam, which amongst different issues makes use of the know-how for options that improve nighttime photographs or routinely select the perfect of a number of intently timed pictures.
Combining the groups, Osterloh added, is a manner for Google to maneuver even sooner on infusing AI into its options. Designing the Pixel digicam a number of years in the past, he mentioned within the interview, required deep information of not simply the advanced {hardware} and software program techniques concerned, but additionally the then-early AI fashions used for picture processing.
“That hardware-software-AI integration really showed how AI could totally transform a user experience,” Osterloh mentioned. “That was important. And it’s even more true today.”
“What you’re now starting to see Google do is flex its core AI innovation engines,” mentioned Chirag Dekate, an analyst with Gartner. “Google wants to dominate the AI, the commanding heights of the emerging AI economy, both on the consumer side as well as on the enterprise side, essentially by infusing AI everywhere and by connecting it.”
In the meantime, the chief of Google’s software program division, Hiroshi Lockheimer, is left with no title and, in response to Pichai’s letter, will probably be beginning another unnamed tasks. Lockheimer did be part of Osterloh for the Verge interview, although, and the 2 males insisted the modifications weren’t the results of an influence wrestle.
Google can also be reorganizing its AI analysis and duty teams, though these modifications largely received’t straight have an effect on shopper merchandise — a minimum of not for now.
