Google is replacing the exec who oversees its $220 billion ad business amid big privacy and AI changes

• Google is replacing its top advertising exec.
• Vidhya Srinivasan will lead Google’s ad organization, replacing Jerry Dischler.
• Srinivasan faces big challenges in running Google’s sprawling ad business.

Jerry Dischler, Google’s top executive and longtime ad executive, is retiring.

Dischler has spent 15 years at Google, most recently leading the company’s entire ad business. In 2020, Dischler will take over as Google’s vice president and general manager of advertising. He is credited with guiding Google through privacy changes and overseeing new uses of technology for its advertising business, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. Google earned more than $220 billion in advertising revenue in the first three quarters of 2023.

Dischler was a driving force behind Google’s advertising efforts surrounding the phasing out of third-party cookies in Google’s Chrome web browser. Under Dischler’s leadership, Google has focused on new ad targeting and measurement methods that are intended to benefit advertisers, consumers, and regulators.

Dischler testified in September as part of the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google, claiming that Google has raised ad prices by up to 5% in order to meet revenue targets. Dischler’s emails were also used as evidence in the trial.

Google has not confirmed whether Dischler is taking on a new role or leaving the company.

“After more than 15 years on Google’s ads business, Jerry Dischler decided to take on a new challenge,” said Google’s Prabhakar Raghavan, SVP of knowledge and information. “Our ads business helps millions of businesses thrive and we’re grateful to Jerry for his many accomplishments in this area.”

Vidhya Srinivasan, an ad executive who joined Google in 2019, will take over Dischler’s position. Previously, she was in charge of product and engineering for Google’s core search, maps, and shopping formats. Her responsibilities now include Google’s other ad formats, such as YouTube and programmatic advertising. Srinivasan has recently worked on generative-AI features for Google ads as well as AI-based tools such as Performance Max. She has also worked on advertising measurement software and Google Analytics.

Srinivasan previously worked at Amazon and IBM before joining Google. Srinivasan, like Dischler before her, will report to Raghavan. Shashi Thakur, a Google executive, will take over Srinivasan’s previous role.

Srinivasan faces challenges as the leader of Google’s sprawling advertising organization. Google is under increasing pressure to keep ad revenue growing in the face of significant privacy changes. Despite Google’s plan to replace third-party cookies with cookie-less technology by 2024, advertisers and other industry observers increasingly believe that Google will not be able to do so until at least 2025. Advertisers have also criticized Google for the way Performance Max purchases placements using AI. It also faces a Justice Department complaint alleging monopolization of multiple digital advertising technology products, as well as an antitrust suit targeting its search business.