Google is contemplating substituting some of its employees with artificial intelligence, reflecting a strong trend towards improving and automating processes using AI, even in leading technology companies.
The company aims to transfer or dismiss some members of the sales team who have integrated new AI tools into their job performance.
The extent of the impact that this could have on the number of employees is unclear, despite being a clear indication of the new shift in AI-powered advertising, which Google implemented earlier this year.
The company described this type of advertising as a way to enhance advertisers’ experiences with Google by creating AI-designed assets for clients regarding specially crafted ad campaigns.
Google employs around 30,000 individuals in the advertising department, with half of these employees tasked with selling ads for specific advertising services from Google that no longer require human intervention, such as YouTube, Search, Gmail, and Maps, thanks to AI reliance by advertisers.
Advertisements contribute a significant portion of the company’s total revenue, and the use of AI instead of employees could potentially increase Google’s profitability in the long run by cutting costs.
Many positions in the advertising sales unit have become redundant due to Google introducing new AI-based tools that can automatically generate new ads for clients without heavy employee involvement.
It is indicated that advertising and marketing roles are not the only positions at risk of being replaced by AI, as many jobs occupied by human employees could be at risk of AI replacement as technology advances.
A report by web hosting company Hostinger earlier this year found that AI has the potential to replace many jobs in various fields, such as healthcare, transportation, financial services, and others.
Hostinger discovered globally that healthcare, particularly administrative tasks in hospitals, could be among the first jobs to be replaced by AI.
The emergence of AI has also led to the creation of many new roles that did not exist previously, including positions like a routing engineer working on producing large linguistic models, AI trainers, and inspectors.
Earlier this year, Google announced the layoff of around 12,000 employees, making it the largest downsizing operation in the company’s history.
