Google Search Chief to Depart; Company Taps A.I. Executive as Successor -- Update
February 03 2016 - 7:14PM
Dow Jones News
By Alistair Barr
Alphabet Inc.'s Google named the head of its
artificial-intelligence research to run its search engine,
demonstrating the importance of the rapidly evolving technology to
the company's main profit engine.
John Giannandrea, who has run Google's artificial-intelligence
efforts since late 2013, will take over from Amit Singhal, who said
Wednesday he is leaving in late February after 15 years at Google
to "give back to others."
Google and others increasingly view artificial
intelligence--advanced software that more closely mimics the human
brain--as central to their products and services. In one technique,
called deep learning, the software evolves by studying patterns,
with minimal human involvement.
Google used deep learning to create RankBrain, a system it
introduced last year to handle complex or rare queries, including
the 15% of searches that are new to the search engine each day.
RankBrain is now considered the third-most-important of more than
200 tools that Google uses to rank search results.
Other deep-learning programs can identify objects in images more
consistently than humans can. Google also uses
artificial-intelligence techniques in searches for photos,
voice-based searches and a planned mobile-messaging service.
Google rivals are also investing in the field. Facebook Inc. has
an artificial-intelligence research lab and uses these techniques
to understand photos users post on its social network and help
decide what content appears in their news feeds. Apple Inc. last
month acquired Emotient, a startup that uses artificial
intelligence to read people's emotions. Microsoft Corp. Wednesday
agreed to buy the company behind SwiftKey, a popular app that uses
A.I. to simplify typing on mobile keyboards.
"A.I. is becoming increasingly important to extract knowledge
from Google's sea of data, particularly when it comes to
classifying and recognizing patterns in videos, images, speech and
writing," said Carlos Kirjner, an analyst at Bernstein Research.
"Of course an A.I. guy would be perfect for this."
Google's DeepMind artificial-intelligence division developed a
program that recently beat one of the world's best players of the
board game Go, a challenge that experts thought wouldn't be met for
a decade.
DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis said the technology will power new
smartphone features, such as recommendations based on location
signals collected from the devices. He and others also hope to use
the technology to improve medical diagnoses.
Mr. Giannandrea has been leading efforts to incorporate machine
intelligence into Google products, including its Photos storage
service, automated replies sent by its Inbox email app and Now on
Tap, which offers users of Android phones who are using one app
links to relevant content and services in other apps.
He came to Google through the 2010 acquisition of Metaweb
Technologies, a startup he co-founded. This formed the basis for
Google's Knowledge Graph, a database that Google taps to provide
quick answers to searches on smartphones.
At a meeting with reporters in November, Mr. Giannandrea said
artificial intelligence will be crucial to Google expanding its
presence on mobile devices and in non-English-speaking
countries.
"Machine learning is a rocket engine. Data are the rocket fuel,"
he added. "You tell the computer how to learn from its mistakes and
get better."
Mr. Singhal helped Google Search adjust to a world dominated by
smartphones and improve the quality of search results through
algorithm updates.
He has said his dream was to make search like the computer on
the TV show Star Trek, which answered spoken questions. A person
familiar with his thinking said Mr. Singhal had been talking about
leaving Google for some time.
Write to Alistair Barr at alistair.barr@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 03, 2016 18:59 ET (23:59 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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