Google has appointed Josh Woodward to lead development of its flagship generative AI chatbot, Gemini, following the departure of Sissie Hsiao. The leadership change, announced internally earlier this week, comes as Google refocuses efforts on advancing Gemini’s capabilities amid growing competition in the artificial intelligence sector.
Woodward, currently the head of Google Labs, will take on the new role immediately while retaining his position at Labs. He is best known within the company for overseeing the launch of NotebookLM, the AI-powered note-taking assistant that allows users to query their own documents using large language models. NotebookLM also included the ability to create a narrated audio podcast from text with incredibly lifelike narrators.
Previously known as Project Tailwind, NotebookLM was developed to integrate tightly with Google Docs and Google Drive, offering contextualized responses based on a user’s own content.
As Google seemed hindered by embarrassing errors on new launches and constantly being upstaged by OpenAI, NotebookLM was one of the rare successes.
In an internal memo released by The Verge, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, said the change was made to “sharpen our focus on the next evolution of the Gemini app.” He praised Woodward’s “strong product leadership” and his track record for turning experimental projects into polished user-facing products.
Sissie Hsiao, who has overseen Gemini since its Bard branding days, will take a short personal break before returning to Google in a new role. Her departure follows structural changes made in October 2024, when Google integrated the Gemini app team into DeepMind to streamline AI product development. That restructuring also placed Hassabis in a more direct supervisory role over Gemini’s direction.
The leadership change underscores the strategic importance of Gemini as Google’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot. As the generative AI landscape evolves, Google is betting on more cohesive product leadership to keep pace in what has become a high-stakes technology race.
