In a not-so-jolly December surprise, the winds of change have swept through Google’s ad sales division, heralding the arrival of job cuts that were whispered about in hushed tones.
The rumors have materialized into reality, as reported by Business Insider, with Google bidding farewell to “hundreds of employees” within the ad sales team. The brunt of these cuts falls upon the “Large Customer Sales” (LCS) team, entrusted with the care of the company’s most substantial advertising clientele.
A report from The Information had foretold the impending layoffs within Google’s Ad division, casting a spotlight on the inexorable march of AI, poised to replace many roles. Indeed, the inexorable march of AI has been manifest in Google Ads, the tech giant’s cornerstone product, which has been steadily infused with a plethora of generative AI features.
One of the AI features in question is a natural-language chatbot, a digital assistant designed to guide users through the labyrinthine landscape of ad products. Its intuitive conversational abilities make navigating the vast selection of offerings a breeze, simplifying a once-daunting task.
The second one is a system endowed with the capability to craft ad assets independently. This system takes the budget and goals provided by the ad purchaser and conjures up images and text with precision and efficiency.
These AI tools are integral components of Google’s “Performance Max” product, a paradigm shift in ad management. This product operates by autonomously remixing and fine-tuning your advertisements, all while using the click-through rate as an instantaneous feedback loop for optimization. It’s a revolution in advertising, one where human intervention takes a backseat as AI steps to the forefront, wielding the power to analyze and refine ads at a breathtaking pace.
Just last week, the axe fell once again, with reports of “hundreds” of employees being handed pink slips across multiple divisions, including the hardware, Google Assistant, and augmented reality (AR) sectors.
The chronicle of these layoffs stretches back in time, with Google News feeling the brunt of the downsizing, followed by the ebb and flow of job cuts that have impacted recruiting, Waze, Waymo, a robotics division, and virtually every corner of the Google kingdom.
