Google's new AI-based system for fielding questions before all-hands meetings is giving the company's leaders an easy way out, employees say.
Previously, employees could post their own questions through an internal tool called Dory and vote for the ones they wanted answered at monthly staff meetings, known as TGIFs. Google executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai, would typically answer the questions with the most votes, Business Insider reported.
But the process changed in April, and several anonymous employees told BI that the new system only asks simple questions.
Google replaced Dory with a new AI-based system called Ask, which aggregates and summarizes multiple questions. Employees can see the summarized questions but can only endorse the AI-summarized version, which company leaders then respond to. Googlers told BI that these summaries often soften the question's underlying harshness, making it easier for company leaders to answer.
“They're simply trying to avoid harmful context or questions being seen by a wider audience and avoid addressing the specifics of what was asked in that particular question,” a Googler told BI.
A Google spokesperson told Fortune that the new “Ask” tool doesn't ease questions, but simply summarizes some to avoid repetition and increase efficiency. Executives still get asked tough questions directly, the spokesperson added. The new tool is still experimental, and the company will consider employee feedback, the spokesperson said.
Still, another employee said the paraphrased questions compiled by Ask have made the once-lively TGIF meetings less fun. Some employees said the meetings have become increasingly pointless, with several saying they rarely attend or ask questions anymore.
TGIF staff meetings are a symbol of transparency at Google, where management and employees discuss the company's direction openly. They previously took place once a week, but were later cut to biweekly. Eventually, in 2019, Google CEO Pichai said that in response to employee activism, the company would cut the meetings to once a month and focus on “product and business strategy.”
The new AI-based questioning system for all-hands meetings was developed in part because employees wanted to answer more questions on a wider range of topics more efficiently, according to a Google spokesperson. Before Questions was introduced in 2023, fewer than 1% of Googlers asked questions during TGIF meetings, the spokesperson said. Since Questions was introduced earlier this year, the number of employees posting and voting on questions has doubled, the spokesperson added.
Despite the changes to the TGIF meeting, one employee told BI that the wording of the questions posed to company leaders didn't matter anyway.
“For years, TGIF executives have avoided questions or given very vague answers,” the employee said.
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