Google Co-Founder Calls for Increased AI Pace Amidst Growing Competition
Google co-founder Sergey Brin is urging the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) teams to “turbocharge” their efforts, according to a recent report. Brin, who still holds a seat on the board after stepping down as Google’s president in 2019, is advocating for a more demanding work schedule and faster progress in the competitive AI landscape.
According to an internal memo obtained by The Verge, Brin stated that teams should come into the office “at least every week day” and work 60-hour weeks. He emphasized the urgency of the situation, writing, “It has been 2 years of the Gemini program and GDM [Google DeepMind]. We have come a long way in that time with many efforts we should feel very proud of. At the same time competition has accelerated immensely and the final race to AGI is afoot,” referring to artificial general intelligence, a form of AI capable of human-level or superior performance. “I think we have all the ingredients to win this race but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts,” Brin added.
Brin’s memo also called on AI workers to shift away from developing “nanny products” and to “trust our users” more, arguing that Google’s AI offerings have become excessively filtered.
Brin’s message echoes similar sentiments expressed by Google CEO Sundar Pichai late last year. As reported by CNBC, Pichai informed employees that “the stakes are high” in 2025. “I think it’s really important we internalize the urgency of this moment, and need to move faster as a company. The stakes are high. These are disruptive moments. In 2025, we need to be relentlessly focused on unlocking the benefits of this technology and solve real user problems,” Pichai said.
In a related story, PYMNTS reported last week on the efforts of Google and other tech giants to counter European AI regulations. Risto Uuk, the head of EU policy and research at the Future of Life Institute, discussed the pushback from these companies.
Uuk noted that the Future of Life Institute is known for its 2023 open letter advocating a six-month moratorium on advanced AI models to ensure safety protocols were in place. However, Uuk stated that this letter did not have the desired effect. He explained, “Many of these companies have not increased their safety work, which the ‘pause’ letter called for. The pause was not just for the sake of pausing, but you would use it to increase AI safety work, and this work, arguably, in many cases, has not happened.”
