Amit Singhal, longtime chief of Google’s search business, to quit

Amit Singhal, the senior vice president of Google’s Internet search business at Alphabet Inc, said he would leave at the end of the month after 15 years with the company.

(Adds more background on Google search direction, more detail about stock decline) By Deborah M. Todd and Sai Sachin R Feb 3 (Reuters) – As one of Google’s earliest search pioneers steps down and the company’s leader in artificial intelligence takes his place, analysts say the move signals the company’s desire to make its search engine more sophisticated. In 2001, Singhal was awarded the title of “Google Fellow” for his work on the search engine.

Singhal said in his Google+ post that February 26 will be his last day at Google, and that he plans to explore more philanthropic efforts in the future. “I am eager to see what kind of impact I can make philanthropically, and of course, to spend more time with my family – especially with my wife who I miss spending time with given our incredibly busy lives, and our son who will go to college soon, leaving an empty nest behind”. “Amit was very well respected and had been at Google from the start and helped to define search as we know it”, said Sinha. His dream is to allow people to ask their computers and phones questions in natural language, and have the phone immediately understand and spit back the answer. Artificial intelligence is increasingly behind advances in how Google answers search queries. “Today, it has become second nature to us”.

The appointment of Giannandrea, who joined Google in 2010, underlines the growing importance Silicon Valley is attaching to artificial intelligence technology.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently stated that AI technology is a major part of the company’s recent efforts in search on mobile devices and personal assistant technologies.