RUTH PORAT

Google snapped out of an unprecedented advertising slump during its latest quarter, signaling a return to growth cycle needed to fuel investments in artificial intelligence technology that expected to reshape the competitive landscape.

Google’s revenue growth during the past quarter decelerated to its slowest pace in two years as advertisers reined in their spending amid fears of an economic recession.

Google is joining Ford Motor Co.'s effort to transform a once-dilapidated Detroit train station into a research hub focused on electric and self-driving vehicles.

That pledge is now a distant memory as Google confronts an existential threat similar to what Microsoft once faced. They focused on creating a database of everything on the internet through a search engine that almost instantaneously listed a pecking order of websites most likely to have what anyone wanted. Google's promotion of Chrome on its search engine helped the browser supplant Explorer as the market leader. Google began reining in its spending and even created a new holding company, Alphabet, to oversee some of its unprofitable projects, such as internet=beaming balloons and self-driving cars. —-Liedtke first interviewed Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 2000 when he began covering Google for the AP.

In an open letter published Monday addressed to Google CFO Ruth Porat, workers are asking for a climate plan that incorporates specific asks that have similarly been set by workers at other tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft. The letter, posted to Medium by a group called Google Workers For Action on Climate, was signed by more than 1,100 workers at Google. According to a climate change report put out by Google's parent company, Alphabet, Porat has the "highest level of direct responsibility for climate change" with "visibility across all of the company's operations." CEO Sundar Pichai said Google "could achieve zero emissions by 2030," according to a report from the Financial Times in September. However, The Guardian recently reported Google has given large contributions to organizations that have denied climate change -- a move that sparked criticism.