In a Bloomberg interview tonight, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pushed again towards issues that AI may finally make half the corporate’s 180,000-person workforce redundant. As an alternative, Pichai burdened the corporate’s dedication to progress by way of no less than subsequent yr.
“I anticipate we are going to develop from our present engineering section even into subsequent yr, as a result of it permits us to do extra,” Pichai stated, including that AI is making engineers extra productive by eliminating tedious duties and enabling them to concentrate on extra impactful work. Somewhat than changing employees, he referred to AI as “an accelerator” that may drive new product growth, thereby creating demand for extra staff.
Alphabet has staged quite a few layoffs lately, although to date, cuts in 2025 look like extra focused than in earlier years. It reportedly parted methods with lower than 100 people in Google’s cloud division earlier this yr and, extra not too long ago, hundreds more in its platforms and units unit. In 2024 and 2023, the cuts had been way more extreme, with 12,000 people dropped from the corporate in 2023 and no less than one other 1,000 employees laid off final yr.
Wanting ahead, Pichai pointed to Alphabet’s increasing ventures like Waymo autonomous automobiles, quantum computing initiatives, and YouTube’s explosive progress as proof of innovation alternatives that frequently bubble up. He famous YouTube’s scale in India alone, with 100 million channels and 15,000 channels boasting over a million subscribers.
At one level, Pichai stated attempting to suppose too far forward is “pointless.” However he additionally acknowledged the legitimacy of fears about job displacement, saying when requested about Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s recent comments that AI may erode half of entry-level white collar jobs inside 5 years, “I respect that . . .I believe it’s vital to voice these issues and debate them.”
Because the interview wrapped up, Pichai was requested in regards to the limits of AI, and whether or not it’s doable that the world would possibly by no means obtain synthetic normal intelligence, that means AI that’s as sensible as people at every little thing. He shortly paused earlier than answering. “There’s lots of ahead progress forward with the paths we’re on, not solely the set of concepts we’re engaged on at the moment, [but] a number of the newer concepts we’re experimenting with,” he stated.
“I’m very optimistic on seeing lots of progress. However you recognize,” he added, “you’ve at all times had these know-how curves the place you might hit a brief plateau. So are we at the moment on an absolute path to AGI? I don’t suppose anybody can say for positive.”