Google was at risk of losing dominance until promoting Josh Woodward

Josh Woodward will not be a family title in Silicon Valley. However inside Google, all people is aware of about him.

The 42-year-old Oklahoma native, who began at Google by means of a product administration internship in 2009, has spent the previous eight months operating the Gemini app, the centerpiece of the search big’s synthetic intelligence technique. 

Heading into 2026, Woodward’s work is extra important than ever as Google rushes to maintain tempo with its high-powered AI rivals, particularly OpenAI, which kickstarted the generative AI increase with the launch of ChatGPT simply over three years in the past. 

As trade consultants forecast a shift in client conduct from conventional search to AI-powered apps, Google is preventing to ensure customers keep inside its ecosystem, whether or not it is for chatbot companies, photographs, movies or on-line buying. Woodward helps to spearhead that effort whereas additionally preserving his job as head of Google Labs, dwelling to the corporate’s experimental AI tasks.

Clay Bavor, former co-lead of Google Labs, stated Woodward’s skill to maneuver quick, break down limitations and execute “has landed him proper on the middle of crucial work at Google.”

CNBC spoke with greater than a dozen individuals who have labored with Woodward about his evolving profile at Google, how he bought there and the stress he faces to assist Google keep forward of the competitors with out shedding the belief of customers. A number of present and former colleagues, together with some who requested to not be named as a result of they weren’t approved to talk to the press, emphasised how significantly Woodward takes the societal issues that include the facility of AI, and about Google’s function in shaping the longer term.

In April, when Woodward was promoted to run the Gemini app, Google’s place in AI was tenuous. Alphabet shares plunged 18% within the first quarter, their worst efficiency for any interval since 2022, and issues had been constructing that the corporate was shedding its long-held place because the web’s entrance door.

Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind and the individual thought-about the highest AI government at Google, stated within the memo asserting the transfer that Woodward could be targeted on the “subsequent evolution” of the app, based on a Semafor report.

A significant turning level for Woodward’s group got here in late August, with the launch of picture generator Nano Banana, a Gemini function that lets customers mix a number of photographs collectively to create private digitized collectible figurines.

Inside days, Nano Banana had turn out to be so well-liked it was overloading the corporate’s infrastructure, forcing Google to position momentary limits on utilization to ease the burden on its custom-designed chips referred to as tensor processing units.

“Our TPUs virtually melted,” stated Amin Vahdat, Google’s head of AI infrastructure, at a November all-hands assembly, based on audio reviewed by CNBC.

By the tip of September, the Gemini app surpassed 5 billion photographs and dethroned OpenAI’s ChatGPT on the high of Apple’s App Retailer. Nano Banana is now being rolled into different merchandise like Google Lens and Circle to Search.

Like its high rivals, Alphabet is pouring cash into AI infrastructure forward of an anticipated surge of recent enterprise. The corporate stated in its earnings report in October that capital expenditures for the complete yr would attain between $91 billion and $93 billion, up from a previous forecast of $85 billion.

Wall Road’s temper on the corporate has reversed dramatically.

Regardless of a brutal first quarter, Alphabet’s inventory is up 62% this yr, outperforming all of its megacap friends together with Meta, which is up 13%.

Google stated in October that the Gemini app’s month-to-month lively customers swelled to 650 million from 350 million in March. AI Overviews, which makes use of generative AI to summarize solutions to queries, has 2 billion month-to-month customers. OpenAI said in October that ChatGPT hit 800 million customers per week.

Final month, Google introduced Gemini 3, its newest mannequin, prompting excitement throughout a lot of the tech sector.

“I’ve by no means had extra enjoyable than proper now,” Woodward advised CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa in an interview quickly after the discharge. “It is partly the tempo. It is partly the talents these fashions give to individuals who can think about use circumstances and merchandise.”

Bavor, who’s now co-founder of AI agent startup Sierra, stated Woodward “was among the many very earliest folks within the firm to see the potential in massive language fashions for constructing merchandise,” and lauded his skill to “get his thoughts totally round a brand new know-how, to see round corners, to see the way it would possibly evolve and the way it is likely to be used.”

Woodward now faces the problem of not solely main two items inside Google but in addition discovering a stability between transferring quick to compete with AI rivals OpenAI and Anthropic and never transferring so quick that the search firm’s AI merchandise allow potential hurt. 

It is a urgent concern as AI quickly bleeds into day by day life, extra slop populates social media, and an onslaught of AI-generated content material makes it troublesome for common customers to differentiate truth from fiction.

Woodward mentioned the theme in a podcast with companions from enterprise agency Sequoia in March, shortly earlier than taking on the Gemini app. AI-generated movies had been quickly getting extra superior, following the launch of OpenAI’s Sora in late 2024.

“After I’m considering of video, for instance, I am on the aspect of eager to amplify human creativity, however there are these moments that occur in our valley right here the place issues change,” Woodward stated. “And so they change typically for generations. And so they can change for good or unhealthy.”

The Nano Banana Professional, launched in November, is so superior that its creations blur the traces between photographs which are clearly AI generated and people which are actual. The product has confronted criticism for depicting white girls surrounded by Black youngsters in responding to a immediate about humanitarian help in Africa. 

The depth of the job is hardly mirrored in Woodward’s persona. Colleagues harp on his disarming, goofy snicker that always comes out mid-conversation and a friendliness stemming from his Midwestern upbringing.

Caesar Sengupta, who labored with Woodward on certainly one of his earliest tasks at Google, stated, “I’ve by no means seen him get indignant with anybody.” Sengupta, who’s now founding father of AI finance platform Arta, added that he used to tease Woodward, suggesting he could be Google’s subsequent CEO.

Woodward joined Google Labs in 2022. Bavor stated Woodward was his first alternative to assist lead the trouble. 

One of many workforce’s first breakout merchandise was often called Mission Tailwind, an AI pocket book that senior product supervisor Raiza Martin thought up in her 20% time, Google’s longstanding apply of letting staff dedicate at some point every week to a mission of non-public curiosity.

Woodward helped shepherd the mission via a number of iterations to what morphed into NotebookLM, a preferred product that analyze articles, PDFs or movies a person uploads, and gives summaries or presents insights. Martin stayed on as a senior product supervisor till December 2024, when she left to co-found AI startup Huxe.

To assist construct NotebookLM, Woodward turned to an unsuspecting rent.

Steven Johnson had by no means had a full-time boss and had no connection to Google. Residing in New York, he’d spent his profession as much as that time as an writer, writing books concerning the historical past of science and know-how.

Woodward was an admirer of his work.

“We hatched plans for him to hitch us as a visiting scholar,” Bavor stated. 

Johnson joined on a part-time foundation in 2022. When he went full time in Might 2023, Woodward put him to work instantly.

With Google’s annual I/O developer convention every week away, Woodward had the concept to demo an audio function for what would turn out to be NotebookLM, viewing it as a strategy to check the evolving capabilities of Google’s AI fashions. The group labored time beyond regulation to get it achieved in time for Woodward’s presentation.

Main as much as the occasion, Martin needed to gather person suggestions on communication app Discord regardless that Google most popular that staffers use homegrown merchandise for such efforts. Woodward intervened to ensure Martin may preserve utilizing Discord, staff advised CNBC.

“In true Google trend, everybody was like ‘What’s Discord?'” Martin stated in October 2024, on Lenny’s Podcast, hosted by tech investor and researcher Lenny Rachitsky. She recalled being requested by Google administration, “Why not use Google Meet, why not Google Teams, why not this and that, and I used to be like, ‘The server is the best way to go.'”

Johnson, who spoke with CNBC on a video name, stated Woodward’s method was, “Allow them to prepare dinner.” The discord server now has greater than 200,000 members, an organization spokesperson advised CNBC.

At I/O, Woodward took the stage after Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s keynote. He opened by speaking about Mission Tailwind, an idea that “5 engineers at Google put collectively over the previous couple of weeks.”

“We have been growing this concept with authors like Steven Johnson and testing it at universities like College of Oklahoma, the place I went to high school,” stated Woodward, as he walked throughout the stage to a laptop computer. “You wish to see the way it works?”

He started his demo, importing paperwork into the app. In a aspect panel, Tailwind immediately started displaying key ideas and questions based mostly on the supplies in every doc. He hovered his mouse over a button that stated citations, saying “My favourite half is it exhibits its work.”

NotebookLM was initially launched in July 2023, adopted by a broader rollout within the ensuing months. It was an immediate hit, and has since been up to date to incorporate podcasting, audio and video options.

Woodward graduated from Oklahoma with an economics diploma in 2006, after which headed to graduate faculty at College of Oxford within the U.Okay., the place he studied the consequences of the U.S. army and financial overseas help on democracy. 

He kicked off his profession at Google in 2009 with a product administration internship, and went on to carry quite a lot of product administration roles.

When Sengupta was tapped by CEO Sundar Pichai to begin the Subsequent Billion Customers (NBU) mission, an initiative to grasp customers in rising markets like India, Woodward was “one of many first folks I requested to hitch,” he advised CNBC.

At NBU, Woodward wrote a weekly publication that was concise and thought-provoking, and have become so well-liked that folks would e-mail the writer asking to be added to the publication, Sengupta stated.

Woodward nonetheless writes a publication — now it is quarterly — about issues of curiosity to him and what he is been studying. Woodward reads a lot that he is typically the primary individual Google executives go to for ebook suggestions, colleagues stated.

He additionally assigns studying. Martin stated on the podcast final yr that Woodward had given her an article to learn that dissected whether or not customers ought to belief AI chatbots.

Certainly one of Woodward’s best-known attributes, staff stated, is his skill to bypass Google’s large paperwork. He helped arrange a system referred to as “block,” the place employees can file a word in the event that they see a perceived roadblock, and a workforce inside Labs will deal with it, they stated. When NotebookLM launched, the product wanted extra TPUs, and Woodward was in a position to get them.

“It has been very cool that we’ve somebody who can maintain the annoying stuff, and we’re in a position to simply get to the customers,” stated Usama Bin Shafqat, a Google Labs software program engineer.

Woodward additionally got here up with a course of referred to as “Papercuts” to handle minor points that create friction in a specific product. In October, Woodward posted on X, “Papercut mounted: Now you can change fashions mid-conversations on GeminiApp with out having to begin over.” The submit bought greater than 100 replies, together with many from customers thanking him.

Woodward is understood for responding on to customers on X and Reddit, and brings suggestions to staff to allow them to handle complaints, stated Jason Spielman, a former designer at NotebookLM.  

“It is that stage of dedication to the tip person I hadn’t seen in different leaders,” stated Spielman, who left Google in January to hitch Martin at Huxe.

At a Google all-hands assembly final December, Woodward took the microphone because the Zombie Nation music “Kernkraft 400” blared within the background. 

“I will attempt to do six demos in eight minutes,” Woodward advised the viewers, based on audio obtained by CNBC. 

He began with Jules, a coding assistant. He confirmed off NotebookLM, which had obtained a number of updates. He then moved to Mission Mariner, an AI-powered multitasking Chrome extension, and demoed AI video generator Veo and experimental AI software Whisk. He additionally confirmed mission Maya, a picture technology software inbuilt collaboration with the Google Buying workforce. 

Attendees erupted in applause after seeing all the demos work in actual time. 

Forward of final yr’s I/O occasion, Woodward urged Google host a second present tailor-made to staffers, based on two staff.

Pichai rapidly greenlit the proposal and dispatched Woodward’s Labs groups to make it a actuality. The end result was Demo Slam, the place staff confirmed off speedy demos to an viewers of their friends, who may additionally strive the merchandise. It was such successful that Google hosted a second Demo Slam in Might, the identical week as I/O.

Expectations are excessive for Woodward, and Google broadly, to proceed delivering new AI options in 2026. However with 2025 wrapping up, Pichai sees the corporate driving excessive.

“The momentum has been unbelievable to see,” Pichai stated at a current all-hands assembly. “We have been delivery at a fairly quick tempo throughout the corporate”

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