Alphabet's Sundar Pichai said his company will keep expanding its engineering ranks at least into 2026, stressing human talent remains key even as Google's parent ramps up artificial intelligence investments. Speaking at the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, Pichai said he will continue to invest in engineering in the near future. U.S. tech leaders like Microsoft have trimmed more staff this year, reflecting in part the enormous investments needed to ensure leadership in AI. The firings have stoked fears about the technology replacing certain job functions. Google, itself, has conducted rounds of layoffs in recent years to free up resources.

Google co-founders Sergey Brin (left) and Larry Page announced Tuesday they are stepping down from their leadership roles but will remain board members of Alphabet, Google's parent company. Google co-founders Sergey Brin (left) and Larry Page announced Tuesday they are stepping down from their leadership roles but will remain board members of Alphabet, Google's parent company. Ending an era at the Internet's biggest search company, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are leaving their leadership roles and CEO Sundar Pichai will become chief executive of both Google and its parent company, Alphabet. Page is stepping down as CEO of Alphabet, while Brin is resigning as its president. They will remain board members of Alphabet, a company that overseas not just Google but also research into artificial intelligence and self-driving cars.