Google Research Week is an annual event hosted by Google to showcase the latest research and technologies being developed across the company. It features talks, demos, posters, and fireside chats from researchers across Alphabet companies like Google, DeepMind, Waymo, Verily, and more.
When and Where is Google Research Week Held?
Google Research Week is typically held in late September or early October each year at the Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, California. The first Google Research Week was held in 2015. Each year, Googlers from around the world gather for 3-4 days of research presentations and demos.
Who Attends Google Research Week?
Google Research Week is an internal event primarily attended by Google researchers, engineers, and other employees. It also often includes invited academics and researchers from universities and other institutions who collaborate with Google research teams.
In total, Google Research Week draws thousands of attendees across the multiple days of the event. The presenters and attendees come from diverse backgrounds and areas of study, reflecting the broad scope of research happening across Google and Alphabet.
What Types of Research is Presented?
Google Research Week highlights progress across the entire spectrum of computer science and related fields. Some of the core research areas featured include:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine learning
- Natural language processing
- Computer vision
- Robotics
- Healthcare & life sciences
- Information retrieval
- Human-computer interaction
- Data mining
- Security & privacy
- Networking & systems
- Augmented/virtual reality
- Sustainability
Within these broad areas, specific technical topics covered span theoretical advances, new models and algorithms, improvements to existing systems, novel applications, and more.
Keynote Speakers
Each year, Google Research Week features highly-regarded keynote speakers from both within Google and the broader research community. Some examples of past keynote speakers include:
- Jeff Dean – Google Senior Fellow, SVP of Google AI
- Sergey Levine – Google Research Scientist, Berkeley Professor
- Demis Hassabis – Co-founder & CEO of DeepMind
- Corinna Cortes – Google Distinguished Scientist, Google AI Chief Scientist
- Stuart Russell – UC Berkeley Professor, AI researcher
- Daniela Rus – Director of MIT CSAIL
The keynote talks aim to inspire attendees by sharing an overarching vision for the future of research and highlighting impactful work that pushes the boundaries of what is possible.
Talks and Presentations
The majority of Google Research Week consists of presentations that dive deep into specific projects and advances across Google and Alphabet companies. These are given by individual researchers and engineers as well as teams.
Talks span 30-45 minutes and highlight completed work and ongoing progress. They range from broad overviews accessible to all attendees to very technical deep dives into new models, systems, and techniques.
Some example presentation topics from recent Google Research Weeks include:
- New techniques for training large language models
- Advances in conversational AI
- Improving medical imaging analysis through ML
- Progress in quantum computing
- Novel augmented reality interfaces
- Enhancing user privacy and security
- Advances in computer vision for robotics
Presenters also often discuss real-world applications of the technologies and how they could be used to solve problems or create new user experiences.
Submission and Selection Process
Several months before each Google Research Week, researchers across Alphabet companies are invited to submit proposals for talks and presentations. The number of submissions runs into the hundreds each year.
A program committee goes through the submissions to curate the schedule based on the criteria of technical merit, novelty, diversity, and potential impact. The goal is to assemble a program that showcases the most exciting developments across Google’s vast research landscape.
Posters and Demos
In addition to talks, Google Research Week also includes poster presentations and interactive demos. These provide a more informal and intimate setting for researchers to present their work and get feedback from attendees.
Posters allow presenting visual information like charts, graphs, and illustrations accompanied by researchers to discuss the projects. Demos offer hands-on experiences of early-stage systems, prototypes, and technologies.
Poster sessions and demo booths are often held in parallel to the main talks and spread throughout the event’s venue.
Fireside Chats
Google Research Week fireside chats feature one-on-one discussions between prominent researchers and technologists. These offer a more free-flowing format to dive into personal experiences, challenges, and visions for the future of their field.
Some example fireside chats from past events include:
- Geoff Hinton interviewing Yann LeCun
- Dario Amodei interviewing Shane Legg
- Peter Norvig interviewing Stuart Russell
The intimate setting of the fireside chats gives the audience a unique glimpse into the perspectives of pioneers and leaders in AI, ML, and related disciplines.
Networking Opportunities
In addition to the talks, demos, posters, and fireside chats, Google Research Week offers many opportunities for networking and making connections. Coffee breaks, meals, and an evening reception allow researchers across different teams to meet, form relationships, and discuss ideas.
Many collaborative projects and papers have grown out of the interactions enabled by Google Research Week’s networking components. With thousands of researchers in attendance, there are abundant possibilities for synergy and cooperation across disciplines.
Why Does Google Hold Research Week?
Google holds Research Week for several key reasons:
- To highlight and showcase Google’s extensive research efforts for employees
- To increase awareness of projects happening across the company’s many research groups and centers
- To foster collaboration, idea-sharing, and relationship-building among researchers
- To inspire Googlers with compelling visions for the future of computing and technology
- To attract and retain top research talent by demonstrating the company’s progress and potential
By gathering thousands of researchers together to exchange knowledge and ideas, Research Week aims to strengthen Google’s research community and reinforce its commitment to pushing the boundaries of innovation.
Focus Areas and Themes Each Year
While Google Research Week covers the full spectrum of the company’s research, each year’s event highlights special themes and topics aligned with Google’s priorities for the coming years. Some themes and focus areas from recent Google Research Weeks include:
| Year | Themes & Focus Areas |
|---|---|
| 2022 | AI for science, Healthcare technologies, Carbon-aware computing, Web3 |
| 2021 | Conversational AI, Computer vision breakthroughs, Privacy-preserving innovation, Healthcare |
| 2020 | Advances in language, Robotics, Machine perception, Quantum computing |
| 2019 | Natural language processing, Fairness in ML, Reinforcement learning, Information retrieval |
Setting special focus themes each year ensures Google Research Week stays fresh and relevant to the company’s evolving priorities. It enables showcasing emerging bodies of research that are becoming increasingly important.
Research Week Team Awards
Each year at Google Research Week, outstanding research teams across the company are recognized with Research Week Team Awards. These awards spotlight teams making significant advances in foundational research, engineering innovation, high-impact applications, and other areas.
Some examples of past Research Week Team Award winners include:
- Google Brain team for groundbreaking work on Transformers and scaling ML training
- Fiber nanostructures team for breakthroughs in AI hardware
- Waymo perception team for self-driving technology innovations
- Google Assistant team for conversational AI capabilities
- Chrome security team for advancing browser safety
Winning teams are honored at the Research Week awards ceremony, with some awards presented by Google’s senior leadership. The awards shine a light on researchers pushing the boundaries and turning research into products, services, and technologies that profoundly impact billions of people.
Impact on Google’s Products and Services
Much of the research presented at Google Research Week directly feeds into new capabilities and improvements across Google’s products:
- Search – Research Week covers AI advances that power search, like MUM, BERT, and other neural models for understanding language, images, and information.
- Gmail – Email organization and smart responses rely on research into conversational AI and natural language processing.
- Google Assistant – The Assistant depends on speech recognition, audio processing, and dialog research revealed at Research Week.
- Google Translate – Machine translation research enables Translate to function in hundreds of languages.
- Google Maps – Computer vision and AI for mapping improve directions, live view, and immersive experiences in Maps.
- YouTube – Video recommendations, captions, search, and streaming draw on the latest research in ML, computer vision, and more.
Across nearly all of Google’s products and services, the foundations lie in the research and technologies showcased each year at Google Research Week.
Research Week Culture and Values
Google Research Week reflects the company’s culture of openness, collaboration, and sharing of knowledge. Researchers are encouraged to pursue passion projects and high-risk, high-reward goals that could be transformative if successful.
By bringing people together across disciplines, Google Research Week reinforces the cross-pollination of ideas that enables breakthroughs. It celebrates both incremental progress on foundational technologies and moonshot visions for radically advancing computing.
Above all, Google Research Week highlights the deep sense of purpose so critical for advancing research – using technology and AI to tackle meaningful problems and improve lives for people everywhere.
Conclusion
Google Research Week has become a keystone event that crystallizes the company’s identity as a leading technology powerhouse driven by research and innovation. It provides a unique window into the ideas and technologies that shape Google’s products and advance entire fields of computer science.
For Googlers, Research Week is incredibly inspiring and energizing – a reminder of the transformative potential of dedicated people coming together to create knowledge. The event motivates researchers to keep pushing boundaries and turning science fiction into reality, one research paper at a time.
