Google recently internally announced its corporate goals for 2024, with artificial intelligence at the top of the list. According to an internal document leaked to The Verge's Alex Heath, Google's main goal in 2024 is to "deliver the world's most advanced, safe, and responsible artificial intelligence."

Other goals include:

-Improve knowledge, learning, creativity and productivity;

-Create useful personal computing platforms and devices;

-Empower enterprises and developers to innovate in Google Cloud;

-Deliver the world's most trusted products and platforms;

-Building a "great" Google for employees and the world.

The last goal on the list is to "increase company speed, efficiency and productivity and achieve lasting cost savings," which hints that more layoffs are likely. Since early January, Google has reportedly cut thousands of jobs across various areas.

In a separate internal memo, Pichai mentioned "ambitious goals" and "important tasks" for this year. To make room for investment, “hard choices” must be made to improve efficiency. The layoffs are expected to be smaller than last year, when Google laid off about 12,000 employees in January, according to the memo.

In terms of artificial intelligence technology and deployment, Google currently lags far behind Microsoft and OpenAI. According to benchmark tests, the Gemini model launched last year is barely comparable to OpenAI's model, and OpenAI is reportedly already working on its next major upgrade with the release of GPT-4.

In terms of productization, like Microsoft, Google is trying to integrate artificial intelligence into existing products, such as its business applications, Pixel smartphones and generative AI search.

However, Google has yet to launch a standalone AI product as successful as ChatGPT. Google is rumored to be developing a new chatbot based on its most powerful Gemini Ultra model. But so far, Google’s Bard chatbot lags far behind ChatGPT in user numbers.

Since OpenAI cooperation has driven Microsoft's cloud business to grow faster than Google, this may be a major pain point for Google. Big tech companies see cloud computing as the next horizon of growth.

On a positive note from Google's perspective, the chatbot disruption that some expected in early 2023 hasn't happened either. Still, AI spam is putting pressure on the quality of Google searches.