Google is shaking things up with its ad sales team, and here’s the scoop. The big G is making changes because of its snazzy new artificial intelligence (AI) tools for crafting and suggesting ads. Around 30,000 employees are affected, and it seems the need for specialised folks to sell ads for specific Google services is dwindling.
The company’s ad sales unit is getting a makeover thanks to AI. The idea is that Google’s new tools can automatically whip up ads that perform well and don’t need much human attention. The company had already let go of about 12,000 employees earlier this year, marking its largest-ever job cut.
This shakeup is all about Performance Max, an AI-powered campaign planner that Google launched in 2021. At this year’s Google I/O event, they jazzed it up with generative AI-based capabilities. This upgrade makes it a breeze to “create custom assets and scale them in a few clicks.”
The result? Advertisers are flocking to Performance Max, making jobs that specialize in selling ads for specific Google services, like YouTube, Search, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps, less essential.
News of the ad sales unit shakeup came from Google’s president of the Americas and Global Partners, Sean Downey, in a recent meeting. But, he didn’t spill the beans on whether this move would lead to more job cuts.
In another meeting, a curious employee asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai about the impact of the previous job cuts. Pichai admitted it hit employee morale hard but defended it as a necessary decision for the company’s growth. He stressed that without those job cuts, Google would have faced even tougher challenges down the line. Tough call, but Pichai thinks it was the right one.
