By Jennifer Elias
Publication Date: 2025-12-20 12:00:00
Josh Woodward, VP of Google Labs, addresses the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025.
Camille Cohen | AFP | Getty Images
Josh Woodward may not be a household name in Silicon Valley. But inside Google, everybody knows about him.
The 42-year-old Oklahoma native, who started at Google by way of a product management internship in 2009, has spent the past eight months running the Gemini app, the centerpiece of the search giant’s artificial intelligence strategy.
Heading into 2026, Woodward’s work is more critical than ever as Google rushes to keep pace with its high-powered AI rivals, namely OpenAI, which kickstarted the generative AI boom with the launch of ChatGPT just over three years ago.
As industry experts forecast a shift in consumer behavior from traditional search to AI-powered apps, Google is fighting to make sure users stay within its ecosystem, whether it’s for chatbot services, images, videos or online shopping….
