Google restructures finance team as part of AI shift, CFO tells employees in memo

Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said in a memo Wednesday that Google is restructuring its finance organization, a move that will include layoffs and relocations, as the company pushes resources to favor investments in artificial intelligence.

“The tech sector is in the midst of a tremendous platform shift with Al,” Porat wrote in the memo, obtained by CNBC, that was sent to employees in finance. “As a company, this means we have the opportunity to make more helpful products for billions of users and provide faster solutions to our customers, but it also means we collectively have to make tough decisions, including how and where we work to align with our highest priority areas.”

The latest cuts follow a broader effort by Google to rearrange its workforce and resources to accommodate further investment in new technologies such as AI as advertising growth slows. CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in January that more job cuts were likely coming in 2024, though he did not specify which teams would be affected.

The restructuring will affect finance teams domestically and abroad, including in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Porat noted. 

Porat also wrote that the company would create “hubs” for more centralized operations including in Bangalore, Mexico City, Dublin, Chicago and Atlanta. The company plans to maintain a significant presence in the San Francisco Bay Area, she noted.

“Over the past year, we have talked about creating hubs of Fin’ooglers around the world that are vibrant and have a strong culture,” Porat wrote. “This strategy will help us be a more efficient organization and enables us to run 24 hours a day while respecting Fin’ooglers worktimes.”

Fin’oogler is the company’s term for a Google employee in finance.

Porat ended her note saying, “We are sad to say goodbye to some talented teammates and friends we care about, and we know this change is difficult.”

“As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC in an email. “To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities.”