Yandex appoints new tech directors for Alice AI, Search and Smart Devices
Yandex
Yandex reshuffled technical leadership: Ekaterina Serazhim (previously Search CTO) becomes CTO of Alice AI, Andrey Tertyshnikov takes over Search, and Alexander Yakovlev becomes CTO of Smart Devices. Declared priorities include a unified reasoning model to underpin Alice AI agent capabilities, an agent 'harness' infrastructure (planning, tool use, context retention), blending generative answers with the classic search results page, and moving the voice stack to a new generative model.
Why it matters
The reshuffle formalizes Yandex's AI roadmap around agents and a single reasoning model for Alice; the new tech owners will drive the next Alice and Search releases.
Importance: 2/5
Leadership change with substantive agent and reasoning-model roadmap detail