In 2022, we introduced a new global e-learning programme to help hiring managers better assess candidates with disabilities, including neurodivergence. Created in partnership with Google’s Disability Alliance Employee Resource Group, the programme helps participants address their biases and adopt more inclusive approaches to communication etiquette, job descriptions, interviews, and more. Based on its impact, we made the programme available to all Google employees in 2023.

We’re committed to making sure people with disabilities can use Android and Pixel phones as easily and effectively as possible. Working together with the disability community, we’ve added accessibility features like:

• Conversation mode for Pixel phones, which uses on-device machine learning to help anyone better hear conversations in loud environments by tuning out competing noise

• Guided Frame, a Pixel accessibility feature that helps people with blindness, low vision, and dexterity-related disabilities take selfies and group photos with more ease

• Pixel Call Assist, which helps users avoid long hold times, navigate phone tree menus, ignore the calls they don't want, and get better sound quality on the calls they do want

• Voice recognition technology that makes voice typing on a Pixel device in English nearly three times faster than tapping

• Live Transcribe, a no-cost Android service that provides automatic captions in more than 70 languages to help people who are deaf or hard of hearing participate in conversations

• Lookout, an Android feature that helps people with visual impairments get descriptions of the physical world using their phone's camera and ask follow-up questions by voice or keyboard

• Reading mode on Android, a more accessible reading experience designed for and with people with low vision, blindness, and dyslexia

• Flash notifications on Android, which provide a visual notification so people who are deaf or hard of hearing don’t have to rely on vibration and can keep their phones at a distance

We’re working with the disability community to improve the quality of disability representation across marketing and media by leading the way and showing how it’s done. In 2021, we launched an in-depth accessible marketing playbook to give marketers, advertisers, and all creatives the tools they need to make work that both resonates with people with disabilities and accurately represents the disability community. This work builds on All In, our inclusive marketing toolkit, and was created in partnership with disability inclusion experts like Disability:IN, a nonprofit resource for business disability inclusion worldwide, and LaVant Consulting, a disability-focused strategy and communications firm founded by Andraéa LaVant. We partnered with actor, author, and advocate Selma Blair to share these resources with the world and shine a spotlight on our shared mission to shift the story about how disabled people are represented in society.

Through programmes and partnerships, we’re working toward gender parity at all levels – both at Google and across the tech industry. Internally, we’re focused on ensuring fairness throughout the employee lifecycle to help women and gender-expansive people thrive. Here’s how:

• We’ve sought to provide pay equity for all women employees globally since 2017, and have shared our approach for others to use.
• We’ve created targeted career development and promotion programmes for women Googlers at every hiring level, from entry-level to director.
• We’ve created internal policies to alleviate stressors that tend to disproportionately impact women. For example, we expanded our Carer’s Leave from 4 to 14 weeks of paid time away with reimbursement for up to 20 days of caregiver costs.
• To address issues of inappropriate conduct in the workplace, we overhauled our internal processes and added new care programmes for people who report concerns.
• We’re cultivating community through conferences like Transcend, our first Women of Color Summit, and through our employee resource groups (ERGs) like Women@Google and Trans at Google.
• We’ve engaged over 4,000 Google managers and leaders in #ItsUpToMe, an internal allyship campaign to hold them accountable as they craft and reach our diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.

AI can help doctors and patients detect diseases earlier, so it has the potential to improve screening for breast cancer – the most common cancer in women worldwide. We’ve partnered with researchers in the U.S. and U.K. to discover how AI can increase the accuracy and efficiency of mammography programmes, reducing the time to diagnosis and improving the patient experience. We’re also working with Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (CGMH) in Taiwan to learn whether our AI models can help with early detection of breast cancer using ultrasound.

Beyond screening and monitoring, we’re researching ways that AI can support and inform the treatment of breast cancer and other diseases across the globe. For example, we’ve partnered with Mayo Clinic to develop an AI system that can help doctors reduce planning time and improve the efficiency of radiotherapy, a common cancer treatment.

Shifting the global landscape of work for women and girls is a critical part of how our company – and the tech industry overall – can reach its representation goals. We’re investing in programmes to help women build community, support one another, and harness the power of mentorship – so that when women start careers in tech, they’re also able to stay in those careers.

Programmes like Mind the Gap, Women Techmakers, #IamRemarkable, and Google for Startups Accelerator for Women Founders provide mentorship and coaching to women in tech at different stages of their careers. In particular, the Women Techmakers Mentor Development Program empowers women in tech to pursue mentorship opportunities through one-on-one coaching, practical mentoring experience, networking, and skill development opportunities. In 2022, over 50 women graduated from the programme and joined Google for Startups Accelerator (GFSA) as mentors, resulting in a 22% increase in women mentors in the GFSA pool across Latin America alone.

Since the very beginning, we’ve worked together to make Google a place where LGBTQ+ communities feel welcome and respected – wherever they are in the world. Here are a few of the ways we’ve shown up for LGBTQ+ Googlers over the years:

• In 2003, our very first employee resource group, the Gayglers (later renamed PRIDE at Google), was created by LGBTQ+ Googlers.

• In 2005, Googlers marched together in San Francisco’s Pride parade for the first time. Growing numbers of Googlers have continued to do so in Pride celebrations around the world every year since.

• In 2009, Googlers marched in cities around the U.S. to honour the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

• Having earlier spoken out in support of same-sex marriage, in 2010, we extended health insurance and family or medical leave benefits to same-sex partners for Googlers in the U.S. Today, we offer health coverage for all Googlers and their spouses or partners of any gender, nearly everywhere in the world.

• In 2011, we pioneered transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits to cover transitioning procedures and treatment.

• In 2019, for the first time, our Diversity Report included data on the representation of employees who have chosen to self-identify as LGBTQ+, as well as nonbinary genders.

When used and developed responsibly, artificial intelligence has the power to help protect vulnerable people – including members of LGBTQ+ communities around the world – from online hate. As part of its mission to build products to help people stay safer online, Jigsaw created Perspective, an API that uses machine learning to identify abusive comments so online publishers like The New York Times, Le Monde, and el Pais can better moderate content. Jigsaw also built Harassment Manager, which allows users to document and manage abuse targeted at them on social media. These free, open-source tools help platforms and individuals reduce toxicity and abusive behaviour, enabling healthy conversations.

In the last couple of years, Google.org has allocated millions of dollars in grant money to support LGBTQ+ communities around the world. This includes:

• $2.7 million and a team of 30 Google.org Fellows in 2021 to use AI to help The Trevor Project scale its LGBTQ+ youth crisis support resources, including expanding its services to more countries starting with Mexico
• $2 million in grants and $1 million in Ad Grants to help OutRight Action International support LGBTQ+ people affected by the COVID-19 crisis in 2021 -Search ads at no cost for Turn2Me in 2022, an Irish nonprofit on a mission to offer safe and timely mental health services online
• Support for {reprograma}, a training initiative that aims to increase opportunities for Black and transgender women in Brazil’s tech sector

In 2020, Google announced a commitment to improve leadership representation of underrepresented groups. We met that goal in 2022 and will continue to build diverse representation, including underrepresented groups, to reflect the diversity of the world around us.

Historically, racial bias in camera technology has overlooked and excluded people of colour, leading to unfair experiences like overbrightening or unnaturally desaturating skin. Our teams are on a mission to build products that work equitably for everyone, so that people from all racial and ethnic groups can enjoy beautiful, representative, and accurate photos and images.

To make Pixel a more inclusive and equitable camera, we partnered with a diverse range of renowned image makers who are celebrated for their depictions of communities of colour. Together, we significantly increased the number of portraits of people of colour in the image datasets that train our camera models. This feedback helped us make the key improvements across our face detection, camera, and editing products that we call Real Tone.

Our virtual try-on tool in Google Search also reflects our commitment to making imaging technology more inclusive. It can take just one clothing image and accurately show how it would drape, fold, cling, stretch, and form wrinkles and shadows on a diverse set of real people in various poses. To train the generative AI model that powers this feature, we used images of a range of people representing different skin tones, body shapes, ethnicities, and hair types.

People from underrepresented groups are far less likely to have access to digital skills training, and this can limit opportunities for career growth. Here are some of the ways we’re working to close that gap:

• Tech Equity Collective (TEC), an initiative started by Google employees in the summer of 2020, accelerates Black innovation and representation in tech by bringing together community and industry partners to create programmes and experiences that lead to tangible progress for Black tech innovators. For example, TEC oversees a $1 million commitment to organisations dedicated to forging career pathways for aspiring Black technical talent.

• Our Skills Ignition SG training programme is helping thousands of Singaporeans and permanent residents get the skills they need for changing technology and a shifting job market.

• In 2022, we launched the Japan Reskilling Consortium, which brings together more than 40 partners from business, local government, and the nonprofit sector to address Japan’s digital skills gap through training and business support.

• In Brazil, the Black Ads Academy programme offers certifications to equip Black entrepreneurs and professionals with digital marketing skills and knowledge of Google advertising solutions. We also partner with the nonprofit Instituto Rede Mulher Empreendedora, which has trained over 200,000 Black Brazilian women in digital skills and entrepreneurship.