Google continues to push the boundaries of AI, not only incorporating technology into its products and services, but also using AI to build them.
CEO Sundar Pichai said on Tuesday’s third-quarter earnings call that more than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers.
“We … use AI internally to improve our coding processes, which increases productivity and efficiency,” he said. “This allows our engineers to do more and move faster.”
As the generative AI era has unfolded over the past few years, Google has positioned itself as both a creator and user of AI tools. Most visibly, it puts the Gemini AI platform at the heart of its products, from Pixel smartphones to search tools to Google Maps, and its Gemini chatbot competes directly with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The jury is still out on whether having AI do the coding work is a good thing, a bad thing, or a hassle for software engineers. But as CNET’s Connie Guglielmo pointed out earlier this week, “If software engineers need to start rethinking their jobs, it’s hard to imagine how AI will change our jobs in the not-too-distant future.” Maybe it’s time for all of us to think about it.”
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Meanwhile, Google faces its own challenges following an August ruling that found its search and advertising business a monopoly. One of the more dramatic potential consequences could be company break-ups and regulatory oversight, which could impact the integration and expansion of AI-powered services.
Pichai’s remarks come as parent company Alphabet reported quarterly sales of $88.3 billion, with Google services (search) up 13% year-on-year and Google Cloud, which provides AI infrastructure for other companies, up 35%. It was announced during the
On the conference call, Pichai said the company is also working to reduce costs associated with enhancing AI, particularly running AI Summary, an AI-generated summary of Google search queries that appears at the top of search results. Ta. Thanks to “hardware, engineering and technological advances,” these costs have recently fallen by more than 90%, he said.
Pichai said Google has doubled the size of its custom Gemini model and is seeing increased user engagement with AI Overview, with more people asking longer and more complex questions. The company this week began rolling out the tool to more than 100 new countries and territories, expanding its reach to more than 1 billion monthly users.
He also teased Project Astra, which is designed to let AI “see and reason about the world around you,” and said such experiences could be available as early as next year.
