Through the year, morale inside Google wavered. Efforts to cut costs across the company in order to invest more in AI resulted in some teams feeling bifurcated and created yet another challenge for Pichai.

Within the company's AI and DeepMind divisions, morale is mostly high, according to employees, boosted by hefty investments. Elsewhere, the vibes have been marred by cost cuts, bureaucracy and declining trust in leadership, employees said. 

DeepMind and AI teams have held off-sites, team-building activities, and have much bigger travel and recruiting budgets, people familiar with the matter said. In the spring, the company moved employees out of an eight-story office on San Francisco's waterfront Embarcadero street and replaced them with AI and AI adjacent teams.