Google layoffs set the stage for AI battle among titans

A YEAR ago, Google’s chief executive officer Sundar Pichai told employees that 12,000 of them, representing 6 per cent of the workforce, were getting laid off.

The company had hired when conditions were rosier and had to backtrack, he said in a mass e-mail.

The retrenchments this time are different. This year, when 2024 rolled around, no such e-mail came. Instead, Google began quietly cutting hundreds of workers across various functions.