Google officially clarified that it has no plans to replace its advertising sales staff with AI. Philipp Schindler, Google’s senior vice president and chief business officer, stated that recent organizational restructures were geared towards enhancing the efficiency of its services, as per reports.
He also said that the ongoing development of new AI solutions is to enable its customers to grow and deliver a return on their investments at scale.
During the Alphabet 2023 Q4 earnings call, Schindler said, “I want to be clear, when we restructure, there’s always an opportunity to be more efficient and smarter in how we service and grow our customers. We’re not restructuring because AI is taking away roles that’s important here. But we see significant opportunities here with our AI-powered solution to actually deliver incredible ROI at scale, and that’s why we’re doing some of those adjustments.”
He added, “So I look at sales force intensity as a stronger focus going forward.”
Why we care. Advertisers have expressed concerns about communication issues with Google staff, fearing it could worsen if AI replaces human channels. Google, however, denied any intention of replacing human communication channels with advertisers using AI.”
Google made headlines by laying off 12,000 employees last year, a surprising move considering the company’s record-breaking profits. Also, Google recently announced plans to cut hundreds more roles, specifically within its advertising sales division, earlier this month. The mass layoff have proved costly for Google, with the company confirming it had spent $2.1 billion on severance and other expenses just last year alone.
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