Google AI Chatbot Gemini Head Sissie Hsiao Resigns with Immediate Effect

Google is replacing the head of its consumer AI applications division, according to Semafor, citing internal memos. The move comes as the artificial intelligence race shifts toward products built with AI models rather than the underlying technology. Sissie Hsiao, who oversaw Google's development of its AI chatbot, initially named Bard and now known as Gemini, is stepping down with immediate effect. Her successor will be Josh Woodward, the current head of Google Labs, who oversaw the successful launch of NotebookLM, a popular tool for converting text into a podcast-like format.

Hsiao, a 19-year Google veteran, played a key role in the company's quick response to the emergence of ChatGPT, which significantly disrupted the technology sector and forced Google to accelerate the public release of its internally developed AI technology.

What Sissie Hsiao said about stepping down

In her memo to staff, Hsiao referred to her tenure as "chapter 1" of the Bard/Gemini story, expressing optimism as she hands over leadership to Woodward for "chapter 2." She intends to take a "short break" before returning to Google in a different capacity.

Google Gemini's Slow Start to 'Impressive Growth'

Despite Google's researchers being pioneers of the transformer-based architecture that enabled the creation of large language models that power tools such as ChatGPT, the unpredictable nature of these models initially led the company to take a cautious approach to its chatbot experiments.

The competitive landscape's urgency caused early mistakes. Bard's launch was criticized for producing inaccurate information ("hallucinations"), and its Gemini image creation tool was chastised, particularly by conservatives, for producing unintended and controversial results, such as depicting women or people of color in historically inappropriate contexts (e.g., as Vikings, Nazis, or the Pope).

Google, on the other hand, has made significant progress in recent years through successful product launches. Notably, last week, Gemini 2.5 outperformed competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic in AI benchmark tests and won the top spot in Chatbot Arena, a platform where users vote on their favorite large language model responses.