Liz Reid

Elizabeth Reid, Head of Search at Google.

Google Search is the most visited website in the world ... and it is under threat.

Since 1998, it's been simple: users type keywords and get links.

But Gen AI chatbots like Copilot and Perplexity AI redefine search, offering personalized results. For example, you might upload a photo of your friend’s shoes, and the AI could tell you where to buy them.

The rapid adoption of Gen AI powered search has led to Perplexity raising $102.3M from investors, including high-profile names NVIDIA and Jeff Bezos.

This has turned Head of Search into one of the 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 at Google – and Liz Reid has been chosen for the task. That's pretty cool!

Here’s an overview of Liz Reid’s journey with Google:
► Reid was the first female engineer in Google’s office in New York and has since served at the company for more than 20 years.
► She was one of the first set of engineers who developed Google Local, which laid the foundation for Google Maps.
► Most recently, Reid has been leading the company’s efforts with AI search and multisearch, known as Search Generative Experience (SGE).

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐆𝐄 (𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞)? It's Google’s AI-enhanced search experience. Instead of presenting a list of individual website links for users to click through to find information, SGE uses generative AI to generates a concise summary or overview directly within the search results page. Think ChatGPT meets traditional Google.

Reid has been vocal about her interest in incorporating SGE’s multimodal, context-rich input and output capabilities into Google Search. For example, she has said that users should be able to upload a picture of their lawn and ask for a lawn mower that suits the lawn's specific terrain and size.

𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞: Under Reid’s management, Google Search is getting ready to fight off competition from emerging contenders. With Google Search revenue (through advertising) equal to $48 billion dollars in the last quarter, that's quite a responsibility and it's awesome that a woman in AI will be the one to tackle it!

Last Updated: May 2024