The Google Assistant is getting a big reboot around generative AI

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Axios has more details about Google's plan to reboot the Google Assistant into something based around generative AI. As was previously reported, the Google Assistant team is getting reorganized around Google's new LLM (large language model) ChatGPT-clone, Google Bard. Axios was given a copy of an email to employees explaining their new marching orders and says that "dozens" of people are being laid off out of the "thousands" that work on the Google Assistant.

The email, written by Google VP Peeyush Ranjan and Director of Product Duke Dukellis, tells the team to "explore what a supercharged Assistant, powered by the latest LLM technology, would look like." The two execs say they've "heard people's strong desire for assistive, conversational technology that can improve their lives."

It's hard to make heads or tails of Google's jargon-filled internal communications, but it sounds like a lot of changes are happening. Whatever the "Services and Surface teams" are in the Google Assistant are being merged, while the mobile team will now "operate separately" from that group (it sounds like this is all client app work?). The "NLP" (we're assuming that's "Natural Language Processing") team is getting new leadership, while a "Speech" team "will continue supporting Assistant and other products."

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