Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gestures during a session at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, January 22, 2020.
Fabrice COFFRINI | AFP | Getty Images
CEO of Google Sundar Pichai last week told employees that “the stakes are high” for 2025 as the company faces increased competition and regulatory hurdles and rapid advances in artificial intelligence.
During a December 18 2025 strategy meeting, Pichai and other Google leaders dressed in ugly Christmas sweaters hyped up the coming year, especially when it comes to upcoming changes in artificial intelligence, according to audio obtained by CNBC.
“I think 2025 will be a critical year,” Pichai said. “I think it's really important that we recognize the urgency of this moment and we need to move faster as a company. The stakes are high. These are breakthrough moments. In 2025, we must remain focused on unlocking the benefits of this technology and solving real user problems.”
Some employees attended the meeting in person at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, and others participated virtually.
Pichai's comments come after a year filled with many comments intense pressure Google has experience since going public two decades ago. While areas such as search advertising and cloud have delivered significant revenue growth, competition has increased in Google's core markets, challenging the company internal challenges including cultural clashes and concerns about Pichai's vision for the future.
Moreover, regulations are now more stringent than ever.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google illegally holds a monopoly in the search market. In November, the Justice Department asked Google to take action forced to renounce its Chrome web browser module. In a separate case, the Justice Department accused the company of illegally dominating online advertising technology. The trial ended in September and is awaiting the judge's ruling.
The same month in the UK competition guard issued a statement of objections over Google's advertising technology practices, which the interim regulator says affects competition in the UK
“It has not escaped me that we are under scrutiny around the world,” Pichai said. “It's because of our size and success. This is part of a broader trend where technology is now impacting society on a large scale. So, more than ever at this time, we must be careful not to be distracted.”
A Google spokesman declined to comment on the matter.
Google search still has dominant market share, but generative AI has given people many new ways to access information online and brought with it many new competitors.
ChatGPT OpenAI started a hype cycle in late 2022, including among investors Microsoft it has since valued the company at $157 billion. In July, OpenAI announced that it would launch the platform search engine own. Perplexity is also promoting its AI-powered search service and recently closed a $500 million funding round in a Valued at $9 billion.
Google is investing heavily to stay on top, largely thanks to Gemini, its artificial intelligence model. The Gemini app gives users access to a range of tools, including a Google chatbot.
Pichai said “building a big new business” is a top priority. This includes the Gemini application, which, according to executives, they see as another Google application that is expected to reach half a billion users. The company currently has 15 apps that have reached this level.
“There has been a lot of growth with the Gemini app, especially over the last few months,” Pichai said. “But we have some work to do in 2025 to close that gap and establish leadership there as well.”
“Scaling Gemini on the consumer side will be our most important goal next year,” Pichai later added.
“You don't always have to be first”
At the meeting, Pichai showed a chart of large language models, with Gemini 1.5 leading OpenAI's GPT and other competitors.
“I expect a little bit of back and forth” in 2025, Pichai said. “I think we will be at the cutting edge.”
He admitted that Google had to catch up.
“In history, you don't always have to be first, but you have to perform well and be truly best-in-class,” he said. “I think that's what 2025 is all about.”
Management responded to questions submitted by employees through Google's internal system. One comment read aloud by Pichai suggested that ChatGPT is “becoming synonymous with artificial intelligence in the same way that Google is intended to do search,” with the questioner asking, “What's our plan to combat this in the coming year?” Or maybe we don't focus so much on consumers? before LLM?”
For a response, Pichai turned to DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis, who said the teams intended to “turbocharge” the Gemini app and that the company had seen progress in user numbers since the app launched in February. He said that “the products themselves will evolve significantly over the next year or two.”
Hassabis described the vision of a universal assistant that “can operate seamlessly across any domain, any modality, and any device.”
Project Astra, an experimental version of Google's universal assistant what the company announced in May, will be updated in the first half of the year.
The employee's other question was whether Google would be able to scale its AI products without charging $200 a month “like other companies.”
“We don't have any plans for this type of subscription at this time,” Hassabis replied, adding that he thought the $20 monthly fee for Gemini Advanced was a good value. “I wouldn't necessarily say never, but there are no plans to do so at this time.”
At the end of the meeting, Google welcomed Josh Woodward, head of Google Labs, to the stage. He took the microphone while Zombie Nation's song “Kernkraft 400” played loudly in the background.
“I'll try to record six demos in eight minutes,” said Woodward, known for his high energy level.
Woodward started by showing Jules, a coding assistant participating in the Trusted Testers program. He said, “This is where the future of software development is going.”
Woodward then transitioned to an AI-powered note-taking product, NotebookLM, which featured a number of updates in 2024, including a podcast tool. Woodward demonstrated how the company is testing a new feature that allows a user to “join” a podcast.
He then moved on to Project Mariner, a multitasking AI-powered Chrome extension. Woodward asked to add the best restaurants from Tripadvisor to the Maps application. After a short break, the demonstration went well, causing applause from the workers present.
Throughout the meeting, Pichai constantly reminded employees that they must “remain fearless.” Google has undergone an extensive cost-cutting phase that included eliminating about 6% of its workforce in 2023 and continuing to focus on efficiency.
At the end of the third quarter, Alphabet had 181,269 employees, down about 5% from the end of 2022.
At one point, Pichai referred to the founders of Google Larry Page AND Sergei Brinwho founded the company 26 years ago, long before cloud computing and artificial intelligence tools existed.
“In the early days of Google, if you look at how the founders built our data centers, they were really hesitant to make every decision,” Pichai said. “Often limitations lead to creativity. Not all problems can always be solved by employment.”
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