Google restructures again: Hardware and the Android system as well as Google One are merged.

Google will hold the Google I/O 2024 Developer Conference on May 14, 2024. However, before the developer conference is held, Google has actually started a new round of restructuring internally, and has also merged the hardware and Android teams into a new department.

This restructuring seems to be not small in intensity, because the Pixel series hardware, the Android system, the Chrome browser, the Google One subscription, and the Google Photos service are unified, and the new department is called the Platform and Device Department.

At the same time, Google will also incorporate the Google research team dedicated to “computational photography and device intelligence” into the platform and device department, that is, to have closer cooperation with the Pixel and Android teams in the future. The head of the new Platform and Device Department is Rick Osterloh. Previously, Rick Osterloh has long served as the head of Google’s device and service team and has rich experience in both software and hardware (including serving as a product manager at Amazon, being responsible for developing Skype at Microsoft, and developing hardware at Motorola, etc.). This round of restructuring also integrates Google’s artificial intelligence-related teams, among which the team at Google Research responsible for researching new artificial intelligence models will be integrated with Google’s DeepMind department.

Regarding the integration of the artificial intelligence team, Google has high expectations, and Google claims that all subsequent teams in the field of artificial intelligence research will be carried out in the Google DeepMind department to expand the capabilities in the field of AI and provide powerful artificial intelligence for users, partners, and customers. Of course, after the integration, it can also simplify the development of AI models.

In terms of security, Google merges the team at Google Research responsible for artificial intelligence security into DeepMind, while other teams in the field of artificial intelligence security are incorporated into Google’s Trust and Security Department, that is, there are security teams on both sides to review the security of artificial intelligence.

This kind of restructuring should not see obvious changes in the short term, but in the next few years, it can be seen whether it will help to improve Google’s competitiveness in all aspects.