• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 29, 2024

Jerry Dischler, the former Google executive in charge of Ads and products, will run the company's Cloud Applications unit, a unit entrenched in artificial intelligence (AI).

Dischler believes the latest AI models will transform how people work, and that much of the value gained will be defined at the application layer.

In a LinkedIn post, he wrote about AI that can augment software as a service (SaaS), developing new applications, and rethinking everything from the ground up,  wrote in a LinkedIn post.

"I'm inspired by Sundar's and Thomas' vision for Google Cloud, and honored to be joining the team for my next challenge," he wrote. 

Media Dynamics President Edward Papazian, who commented on that post, thinks the in this case change may be good.

Dischler had stepped down from his role in Google's ads business in November after more than 15 years with the company to take a "new challenge." Vidhya Srinivasan, who previously led product and engineering for ads, stepped into the role.

Dischler also believes the change is a positive one, and that value will come from integrating AI into the application layer.

Nokia recently began using AI to support networking infrastructure, and semiconductor company Intel will integrate AI into its application layer in its programmable chips business, which began operating as a standalone business at the beginning of this year.

On Thursday the company outlined its plans for the future and its official name: "Altera, an Intel company."

Intel acquired Altera, a chip company, in 2015 and, after paying $16.7 billion and incorporating it into its Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) business unit, the name disappeared.

Intel CEO Sandra Rivera told Reuters the programmable chips that Altera designs now are useful for AI applications and computing tasks that fall in between the purpose-built custom processors designed by cloud computing companies like Amazon.com and the general-use AI chips made by Nvidia.

Programmable is the key word, which means these chips that go into phones, computers and other devices and infrastructures can be programmed for a variety of reasons and tasks.

One day, ad buying may occur through automation within the semiconductor chip supported by AI, and advertisers may gain the ability to remember which device has opted out of ad targeting.