Google is reorganizing the organizational structure of its virtual assistant unit — called Google Assistant — to focus more on Bard, the company's new AI-based intelligent chat technology.
The information appeared in a memo distributed to employees on Wednesday titled "Changes to Assistant and Bard Teams," and Sissy Hsiwa, vice president and head of business at Google Assistant, announced changes to the organization that show the unit is giving high priority to Bard.
According to the memo, seen by CNBC, Jiangchang "JC" Mao, who served as vice president of engineering at Google Assistant and helped develop the assistant's software, will leave the company for personal reasons.
Mao will replace Google veteran Piyush Ranjan, who recently served as vice president in Google's development division, where he oversaw payments.
"As Bard's teams continue this work, we want to ensure that we continue to support and implement future opportunities," Hsiao said in the email.
Google Assistants runs as a virtual assistant for Android, a language processing program similar to Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa.
These assistive apps often work by speech recognition, and the assistant is used on mobile devices and at home, including a Pixel smartphone, speakers, and Nest smart devices.
The new leadership changes indicate that Google plans to integrate Bard technology into the Google Assistant app and similar apps in the future.
Google launched Bard, a competitor to ChatGPT, last week to the public, saying it was "under trial" and began testing in the US and UK.
CNBC previously reported that the company had withdrawn members from teams in different regions around the world to focus on developing Bard.
As part of Wednesday's change, Google's assistant vice president of engineering, Ammar Subramania, will now lead a cool team, the email said.
Trevor Stertman, who previously led the engineering efforts to develop Bard, will continue as Bard's "technology leader."