As Google (GOOG, GOOGL) pivots to incorporate AI technology across its array of services, its parent company, Alphabet, is bringing on a new CFO.
Anat Ashkenazi, a 23-year veteran of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (LLY), will become the top financial officer and senior vice president of Google and Alphabet at the end of next month, the tech giant announced Wednesday.
The move comes at a pivotal moment for Google. The two-trillion-dollar tech company is waist-deep in a transition to harness the power and excitement around generative AI. It’s churning out huge investments in data centers and infrastructure and is retooling flagship products to claim turf in the burgeoning market for AI tools. The digital advertising king aims to be the dominant player in the next era of computing.
Ashkenazi comes to Google after overseeing a period of staggering growth. Eli Lilly’s share price has surged close to 700% over the past five years. Among its newer products are Mounjaro and Zepbound. Both medicines are from the increasingly popular class of drugs that lower blood sugar and promote weight loss.
Ruth Porat, who has served as Google’s CFO since 2015, was promoted to president and chief investment officer last year. She will oversee investments in Other Bets, as well as regulatory matters and international expansion.
Google shares gained 0.9% Wednesday.
This year’s heated competition to deploy new software built around large language models follows a period of uncertainty and volatility for Google and its Big Tech rivals.
After investors flocked to tech companies during the acute phase of the pandemic, the stay-at-home economy began to open up. And as inflation reached historic levels, the Federal Reserve’s tightening campaign initially squeezed the tech sector, prompting mass layoffs and a brutal period of financial bloodletting.
But the enthusiasm around AI's potential has reinvigorated the tech sector, providing Ashkenazi with immense opportunities and challenges.
While Google was seen by many to have been caught flat-footed after the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the company has gone on to unveil a slew of AI services for businesses and consumers. But there have been missteps.
Several of the company’s newest AI features were deficient, providing fodder for competitors and critics of the company’s haphazard rollout.
At a crucial promotion last year, Google’s chatbot Bard shared incorrect information about a NASA space telescope, leading to a $100 billion loss in the market value of the company. A year later, users of Bard’s successor, Gemini, discovered that the image generation tool created inaccurate or unexpected results of historical figures. And last month, after Google unveiled AI Overviews, a new search tool that gives users AI-generated answers to search results, the service gave users incorrect or absurd results in response to some queries.
A key challenge for Ashkenazi will be monetizing these and other AI tools while safeguarding Google’s legacy search business, which may itself be threatened by users increasingly turning to AI services.
Despite the recent blunders, many view Google as well positioned to capitalize on the AI transition.
The company posted standout quarterly results in April and further incentivized shareholders with the double whammy of a new cash dividend and a massive stock repurchase program. Shares are up more than 25% for the year.
Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on Twitter @hshaban.
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