In this article GOOGL Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT
Josh Woodward, VP of Google Labs, addresses the crowd during Google's annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025. Camille Cohen | AFP | Getty Images
Josh Woodward may not be a household name in Silicon Valley. But inside Google , everybody knows about him. The 42-year-old Oklahoma native, who started at Google by way of a product management internship in 2009, has spent the past eight months running the Gemini app, the centerpiece of the search giant's artificial intelligence strategy. Heading into 2026, Woodward's work is more critical than ever as Google rushes to keep pace with its high-powered AI rivals, namely OpenAI, which kickstarted the generative AI boom with the launch of ChatGPT just over three years ago. As industry experts forecast a shift in consumer behavior from traditional search to AI-powered apps, Google is fighting to make sure users stay within its ecosystem, whether it's for chatbot services, images, videos or online shopping. Woodward is helping to spearhead that effort while also keeping his job as head of Google Labs, home to the company's experimental AI projects. Clay Bavor, former co-lead of Google Labs, said Woodward's ability to move fast, break down barriers and execute "has landed him right at the center of the most important work at Google." CNBC spoke with more than a dozen people who have worked with Woodward about his evolving profile at Google, how he got there and the pressure he faces to help Google stay ahead of the competition without losing the trust of users. Several current and former colleagues, including some who asked not to be named because they weren't authorized to speak to the press, emphasized how seriously Woodward takes the societal concerns that come with the power of AI, and about Google's role in shaping the future.
watch now
In April, when Woodward was promoted to run the Gemini app, Google's position in AI was tenuous. Alphabet shares plunged 18% in the first quarter, their worst performance for any period since 2022, and concerns were building that the company was losing its long-held position as the internet's front door. Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind and the person considered the top AI executive at Google, said in the memo announcing the move that Woodward would be focused on the "next evolution" of the app, according to a Semafor report. A major turning point for Woodward's group came in late August, with the launch of image generator Nano Banana, a Gemini feature that lets users blend multiple photos together to create personal digitized figurines. Within days, Nano Banana had become so popular it was overloading the company's infrastructure, forcing Google to place temporary limits on usage to ease the burden on its custom-designed chips called tensor processing units. "Our TPUs almost melted," said Amin Vahdat, Google's head of AI infrastructure, at a November all-hands meeting, according to audio reviewed by CNBC. By the end of September, the Gemini app surpassed 5 billion images and dethroned OpenAI's ChatGPT at the top of Apple's App Store. Nano Banana is now being rolled into other products like Google Lens and Circle to Search. Like its top rivals, Alphabet is pouring money into AI infrastructure ahead of an expected surge of new business. The company said in its earnings report in October that capital expenditures for the full year would reach between $91 billion and $93 billion, up from a prior forecast of $85 billion.
Stock Chart Icon Stock chart icon Alphabet vs. Meta in 2025
Wall Street's mood on the company has reversed dramatically. Despite a brutal first quarter, Alphabet's stock is up 62% this year, outperforming all of its megacap peers including Meta, which is up 13%. Google said in October that the Gemini app's monthly active users swelled to 650 million from 350 million in March. AI Overviews, which uses generative AI to summarize answers to queries, has 2 billion monthly users. OpenAI said in October that ChatGPT hit 800 million users per week. Last month, Google introduced Gemini 3, its latest model, prompting excitement across much of the tech sector. "I've never had more fun than right now," Woodward told CNBC's Deirdre Bosa in an interview soon after the release. "It's partly the pace. It's partly the abilities these models give to people who can imagine use cases and products." Bavor, who's now co-founder of AI agent startup Sierra, said Woodward "was among the very earliest people in the company to see the potential in large language models for building products," and lauded his ability to "get his mind fully around a new technology, to see around corners, to see how it might evolve and how it might be used."
'Change for good or bad'
Woodward now faces the challenge of not only leading two units within Google but also finding a balance between moving fast to compete with AI rivals OpenAI and Anthropic and not moving so fast that the search company's AI products enable potential harm. It's a pressing issue as AI rapidly bleeds into daily life, more slop populates social media, and an onslaught of AI-generated content makes it difficult for average consumers to distinguish fact from fiction. Woodward discussed the theme in a podcast with partners from venture firm Sequoia in March, shortly before taking over the Gemini app. AI-generated videos were rapidly getting more advanced, following the launch of OpenAI's Sora in late 2024. "When I'm thinking of video, for example, I'm on the side of wanting to amplify human creativity, but there are these moments that happen in our valley here where things change," Woodward said. "And they change often for generations. And they can change for good or bad." The Nano Banana Pro, released in November, is so advanced that its creations blur the lines between images that are clearly AI generated and those that are real. The product has faced criticism for depicting white women surrounded by Black children in responding to a prompt about humanitarian aid in Africa. The intensity of the job is hardly reflected in Woodward's persona. Colleagues harp on his disarming, goofy laugh that often comes out mid-conversation and a friendliness stemming from his Midwestern upbringing. Caesar Sengupta, who worked with Woodward on one of his earliest projects at Google, said, "I've never seen him get angry with anyone." Sengupta, who's now founder of AI finance platform Arta, added that he used to tease Woodward, suggesting he would be Google's next CEO.
Clay Bavor, VP of Virtual Reality for Google, introduces the Daydream View VR headset during the presentation of new Google hardware in San Francisco, California, U.S. October 4, 2016. Beck Diefenbach | Reuters
... continue reading