Google Gemini app team moves to DeepMind as tech giant's AI reorganization continues

Google has been undergoing some restructuring and reorganizing in recent months or so. The Mountain View tech giant is now shifting its AI team around, with the Gemini app team moving to the DeepMind AI research lab.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s boss, says that the reorganization was made to improve collaboration and deployment of new models. The Gemini app is now powered by Gemini 1.5, which Google launched back in February, and it’s currently unclear when the company will launch its predecessor. There were two updates though, Gemini-1.5-Pro-002 and Gemini-1.5-Flash-002.

“Bringing the teams closer together will improve feedback loops, enable fast deployment of our new models in the Gemini app, make our post-training work proceed more efficiently, and build on our great product momentum,” Google says.

Besides, Google also moved the Assistant team, which focuses on devices and home products, to the Pixel and Android (Platform & Devices) division to let them work more closely with the products they develop.

Google’s senior VP, Prabhakar Raghavan, also transitioned to Chief Technologist to focus on providing technical direction after over a decade of leadership. Nick Fox, formerly a part of Raghavan’s team, now serves as the new senior VP for Knowledge & Information, leading the search, ads, geo, and commerce divisions. Raghavan served in the position for 12 years.

This shake-up came at a critical time for Google, which currently faces a breakup threat of Android and Search from the Department of Justice (DOJ). But still, in another update, the tech giant launched its first AI Academy in the Asia-Pacific region and brought 23 startups from seven countries for a three-day boot camp in Singapore.