Google is changing its reporting structure so that work will be less focused on Google Assistant and more on Google Bard, CNBC has reported. For those not up-to-date, Google Bard is a generative AI tool much like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and is able to answer most queries thrown at it, though, not always correctly. Nevertheless, it’s much more advanced in its answers than Google Assistant so this could explain why Google wants to shift its manpower to Bard development.
CNBC has seen an internal memo from the company called “Changes to Assistant and Bard Teams” that points to the company prioritizing work on Bard. The memo said that Jianchang Mao who was vice president of engineering for Google Assistant would be leaving Google for personal reasons and his position would be taken over by Peeyush Ranjan who has been at the firm for 16 years and oversaw payments.
Other changes will see Google Assistant engineering vice president Amar Subramanya become the Lead Engineer for the Bard team and Trevor Strohman, who was previously the lead engineer, become the Area Tech Lead for Bard.
Right now, the company calls Bard an experiment and has stamped this label next to the logo users see when they use the service. It’s unclear right now whether users will continue to interact with Bard the way they do now or whether Google will make it a part of Google Assistant and require you to access it on your phone or smart speaker. According to CNBC, Google still doesn’t know how it will monetize Bard so an answer to that issue will be something to watch out for.
Source: CNBC