Google halved its experimental Area 120 division and redirected the remaining group toward AI projects. According to TechCrunch.
According to the employees who were cut, they have until the end of January 2023 to find a new role at Google.
Area 120 was founded in 2016 as the tech giant’s internal incubator. Employees in the division could devote all of their working time to pursuing experimental ideas, rather than the standard 20%.
Of the seven Area 120 projects that were scrapped, only one went public — a tool for creating an online store called Qaya. The other three were related to climate, and the remaining ones to AR/VR technologies and accounting features for Sheets.
Area 120’s developments have also been used in Google’s commercial products. Among them are Smart Replies for Android, and the GameSnacks mini-games in Android Auto and Chrome.
In addition, the incubator’s project Aloud remains in development, a project that uses machine learning to dub YouTube videos into several languages.
The reduction in Area 120 staff is likely linked to Google’s slower hiring. Earlier, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a pause in hiring.
“We must think about how to minimize distractions and truly raise the bar for both product quality and performance,” said at a meeting with employees in August 2022.
In August, Google forced to resign a critic of the military AI contract with Israel.
In May, Google’s Brain Team division unveiled Imagen, an image generator from text prompts.
Subscribe to ForkLog’s Telegram news: ForkLog AI — all the news from the AI world!