Google CEO Tells Staff Company ‘Needs to Move Faster’

The new year will be crucial for Google, the tech giant’s CEO told staff recently.

Sundar Pichai addressed employees earlier this month about Google’s plans for 2025, telling them that “the stakes are high,” CNBC reported Friday (Dec. 27).

“I think 2025 will be critical,” Pichai said, per audio obtained by the network.

“I think it’s really important we internalize the urgency of this moment, and need to move faster as a company. The stakes are high. These are disruptive moments. In 2025, we need to be relentlessly focused on unlocking the benefits of this technology and solve real user problems.”

The report noted the myriad pressures facing Google. For example, search ads and cloud services continue to drive revenue, the company is dealing with increased competition, and heavier-than-ever regulation.

A federal judge ruled in August that the company has an illegal search monopoly, leading the Department of Justice (DOJ) to push to have Google divest its Chrome browser. As an alternative to that plan, Google has recently proposed relaxing its agreement with Apple and other tech companies that makes Google the default engine on new devices.

In a separate case, the DOJ accused Google of an illegal online ad tech monopoly. A judge has yet to issue a ruling in that case.

The U.K.’s antitrust watchdog has also noted its objections to Google’s ad technology practices, saying they are hindering competition in Great Britain.

“It’s not lost on me that we are facing scrutiny across the world,” Pichai said. “It comes with our size and success. It’s part of a broader trend where tech is now impacting society at scale. So more than ever, through this moment, we have to make sure we don’t get distracted.”

A top priority, he added, is “building big, new business” such as the artificial intelligence (AI) app Gemini, which the company believes will be its next app to reach 500 million users.

“With the Gemini app, there is strong momentum, particularly over the last few months,” Pichai said. “But we have some work to do in 2025 to close the gap and establish a leadership position there as well.”

Earlier this year, Pichai told The New York Times that while AI development isn’t hitting a wall, progress will likely face increased challenges next year as the industry shifts beyond “low-hanging fruit.”

“AI isn’t hitting the brakes; it’s just outgrowing the public data pool,” Eugina Jordan, chief marketing officer of the TIP Telecom Infra Project, told PYMNTS. 

“While we’ve pretty much wrung every drop of insight from external data (and sometimes maybe without data owners knowing), the real magic is sitting inside private organizational data. Businesses can fine-tune AI models with their own treasure troves, making tools smarter and hyper-relevant.”