Is that your diagnosis of what\u2019s going on with Google? Is this just a catastrophe for its bleeding-edge efforts?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s really bad, but I do think people are forgetting how powerful Google is and how much they own. All of the integration they can do, all of the tools, all of the data they have on us \u2014 they have a huge safety net, is what I\u2019m saying. A huge cushion.<\/p>\n
Even if they make huge mistakes and are falling behind, I still think you can\u2019t count them out completely because they have so much power. However, it\u2019s crazy to me that they have that much power and all that going for the company, and they\u2019re still not in the lead, let alone being behind as of right now. That\u2019s what I think is crazy.<\/p>\n
And Sundar and Demis both made that point in their statements last week. Sundar wrote that the company\u2019s committed to being at the frontier and they\u2019re focused on the areas they need to improve, which is CEO-speak for, \u201cWe know we need to get our shit together.\u201d And then Demis wrote that the company\u2019s \u201centering a next chapter\u201d and that \u201cit has the ingredients to lead from here, and I firmly believe we will,\u201d AKA, \u201cwe aren\u2019t yet, but we have the ingredients to do it sometime in the future.\u201d Both of them acknowledging that is pretty crazy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not looking good for them, but it reminds me of someone with a trust fund. They have a fallback. Don\u2019t count them out yet.<\/p>\n
That trust fund is Google Search. They have a product that billions of people use and that they\u2019re putting AI into. As you and I have discussed many, many times, that is a consumer product. Consumer AI has not yet reached a point of making a bunch of money for a bunch of people, but everyone sees that as the prize. All of the action is in enterprise AI right now, and you can see Anthropic is out to a big lead because of their focus on enterprise AI and in particular coding.<\/p>\n
One of the things I want to come back to is whether Google made the wrong bet on multimodality and world models, which Demis is really focused on, instead of these core enterprise use cases and whether they even want to be at the frontier. They\u2019re saying they want to be, but maybe they don\u2019t. Maybe they just want to sell cloud services to Anthropic, which is a business that is growing for Google.<\/p>\n
But hold that thought. I want to come back to that. Just put that in your brain. This is part of the framework that I\u2019m thinking about. You just said Sundar said, \u201cIt\u2019s the next chapter. We\u2019re committed to it.\u201d They\u2019re making changes.<\/p>\n
But Hayden, a few months ago I was sitting with Sundar Pichai<\/a> and I asked him, \u201cHey, you just restructured this entire company. You got rid of all of your senior executives. You have all new ones. You made DeepMind.\u201d He said, \u201cYeah, that was hard.\u201d Here\u2019s a clip:<\/p>\n Sundar Pichai: It was tough to convey it outside, but I pivoted the company to be AI-first. We had all the ingredients, so in some ways I felt like the Overton window had changed. People were adopting these technologies faster than we had expected. To me it was a way to go and actually express ourselves through our products, but I realized we had to organize ourselves for it. And going back to my earlier point, I realized we need a core model and a core infrastructure team to power everything we are doing across Google. A lot of my initial energy was to go set that up.<\/p>\n To get one AI team, we had world-class research teams in Brain and DeepMind and brought those together as Google DeepMind, which was harder than it sounds because it\u2019s like saying, \u201cGo put Stanford and MIT together and create a department out of it or a university out of it.\u201d So I think we\u2019re doing that well.<\/p>\n That\u2019s Sundar saying, \u201cMy company wasn\u2019t organized for the AI moment. We were slow to react to ChatGPT. I made this huge change to build a central infrastructure team.\u201d It\u2019s three months later, four months later, and the head of Google Brain is leaving. The head of Google DeepMind is becoming the chief scientist. <\/p>\n Now, Google DeepMind doesn\u2019t have a CEO anymore. It has an SVP. What do you read into that? Is that yet another reset or is it just more of the same?<\/p>\n It\u2019s another reset, but it\u2019s hard because I really do think it\u2019s both. It\u2019s a result of the fact that Demis has never been interested in the productization stuff. He\u2019s, like you mentioned, really into world models, research, curing disease, and drug discovery. And Jeff Dean is similar. So I\u2019m not surprised.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re being optimistic, you could view this as just the ripple effects of the conversation you had with Sundar, but I also don\u2019t think this bodes very well for the company because, as we\u2019re seeing with OpenAI literally right now, whenever there are a bunch of executive shakeups, people get nervous. People below them leave. People don\u2019t work as hard because they\u2019re thinking too much about things. Plus, a lot of the people that are working on AI at Google are there because of Jeff Dean or Demis. So what\u2019s going to happen now?<\/p>\n They\u2019re thinking about this solely on the page, logistical. \u201cOkay, who is best positioned to speed up our productization?\u201d Maybe that\u2019s the best decision. But when you take into account all the minds that are leaving and all the minds that will leave in the next couple of months, it\u2019s going to be rough.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of controversy, or I guess curiosity, around Gemini 4, which is not yet out. They announced it at Google I\/O. They put all their emphasis on the 3.5 class models. The 3.5 class models are not at the top of the leaderboards. They\u2019ve actually fallen quite far behind.<\/p>\n Does this strike you as the actions of a bunch of executives who think Gemini 4 is going to vault them back into the lead? Or do you think people are getting out because Google isn\u2019t as committed or focused on being on the frontier?<\/p>\n As SemiAnalysis wrote in its blog<\/a>, \u201cThese are not the actions of people excited about Gemini 4 Pro.\u201d So definitely not. Google is pretty committed to being a frontier lab. It\u2019s more, is it going to reach its goal? Though my answer to that a few months ago would\u2019ve been that it was a frontier lab, right now it\u2019s more of a wait-and-see. It is right now, but is it going to fall out of favor?<\/p>\n SemiAnalysis put it more heavily. They said in their release, \u201cWe believe DeepMind is no longer a frontier lab.\u201d To me, it\u2019s still got that designation, but in a few months that might be very different and I didn\u2019t anticipate that changing so quickly. There\u2019s a chance it could go the way of Meta where they suddenly get pretty behind and they keep promising things and then taking a while to deliver. Same with Apple, actually. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n I\u2019m glad you brought up SemiAnalysis. It\u2019s an investment research firm. They do great work across AI and chips and thinking about how the math of all this should work out. That post really struck me as well.<\/p>\n I just want to reuse some other parts of it. There\u2019s a lot of this in which The Verge has covered Google for a long time and there are echoes of this throughout our coverage of Google, and there are some parts of this which feel new to me \u2014 they\u2019re new problems for Google.<\/p>\n So I\u2019ll just read you the longer version of the quote you just said. As Hayden said, they wrote, \u201cFor all intents and purposes, we believe DeepMind is no longer a frontier lab. Google will continue meandering on and releasing models, but their odds of reaching the state of the art again have dropped to zero.\u201d<\/p>\n This strikes me as an incredible claim. We see the model race twist and turn all the time. And to say, \u201cGoogle will never once again hit the state of the art\u201d feels like an enormous claim. That\u2019s the part that feels new to me. Week to week in AI, anything could happen. Do you think there\u2019s evidence for that?<\/p>\n That\u2019s really putting the cart before the horse. It\u2019s been a few months since we ourselves wrote about Gemini 3\u2019s hype. It was winning the model race for a few weeks until something else came along. I definitely don\u2019t think the odds have dropped to zero for them reaching state of the art again. In a way, they\u2019re cutting out some of their research focus and just going all in on products. If they\u2019re really going all in on that and they find a way to put all their efforts behind that, they will reach state of the art again.<\/p>\n However, what this will be is them constantly catching up right after another frontier lab. And then the other frontier labs that invest in research more and long-term stuff are going to be pulling ahead. It\u2019s kind of the same thing as if you\u2019re a writer and someone keeps copying you, they\u2019re always going to be right behind you. They\u2019re not going to be thinking of the next thing like you are.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what I foresee ending up happening here. If you\u2019re not really investing quite as much in the longer-term research and all these niche areas that, for example, Jeff Dean\u2019s startup is going to be looking at, I feel like they could reach state of the art again. But it\u2019s not going to be them coming in the lead over and over again.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the part that felt new to me. I don\u2019t really know how to evaluate that claim, especially as Google\u2019s AI division changes leadership. I can\u2019t read Sundar\u2019s mind. I\u2019ve tried many times. It\u2019s very difficult to see what\u2019s going on in his head. I don\u2019t know if he wants to win that race or if he thinks Gemini is good enough now to make a bunch of money inside of Google\u2019s products. I really don\u2019t know how to evaluate, \u201cThey\u2019ll never be at the state of the art again.\u201d<\/p>\n The part I do know how to evaluate is the second part of the SemiAnalysis claim here, which anybody who has paid attention to Google will immediately understand and immediately agree with this, I think. <\/p>\n They go on to say, \u201cPerhaps there\u2019s some world in which Google reaches the state of the art again, but we think the odds are basically zero\u2026 The issue with Google was not Jeff Deam or Noam Shazeer,\u201d who we should talk about, \u201cbut rather their extremely bureaucratic, painfully slow, and strategically timid culture.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s Google. I literally sit with Sundar once a year and say, \u201cTell me about your culture and tell me about this bureaucracy.\u201d There\u2019s something about Sundar saying to me at I\/O, \u201cI made DeepMind the center of the company and then everything else is productizing their development,\u201d and then all the people leaving and SemiAnalysis saying they\u2019ll never be at the frontier again because their culture is so bureaucratic, that is uniquely Google to me. It feels very familiar.<\/p>\n I know you\u2019ve talked to people at Google since all these announcements. Is there a sense that Google\u2019s culture needs to change even more to go and compete?<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason that so many people are flocking to Anthropic right now. Anthropic is not perfect by any means. They have a lot of red flags as well. But I\u2019m seeing a lot of people from OpenAI, from Google, from Meta flock there because, as we\u2019ve reported a bunch, people in this space are a little bit post-money. A lot of times they don\u2019t care just about the salary or what they\u2019re making. They care about working for a place that aligns with their values that they believe in. Google has really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way when it comes to that.<\/p>\n Jeff Dean and Demis had both signed a public letter in 2018, saying that AI shouldn\u2019t be used for lethal autonomous weapons<\/a>. Jeff Dean had been tweeting in the months before he left Google about the fact that mass surveillance could be a really big problem with AI<\/a>. Jeff Dean even signed an amicus brief in support of Anthropic<\/a> with the whole Department of War situation, which Google ended up signing and just kind of letting the Department of War do whatever with their AI.<\/p>\n I could see a lot of people fleeing in the next few months because Jeff Dean seemed to be, according to my sources that I spoke with there, the person keeping a lot of people at Google. I could see a big exodus happening in the next few months.<\/p>\n This is one of the bigger questions. Who was the keeper of the morals and values of this team inside of a Google that seems to be more willing to play ball with the Trump administration? With the Department of War, and with the uses of AI that some people are very, very skeptical or very, very skittish about?<\/p>\n There\u2019s been a lot of reporting about the fact that when Google acquired DeepMind and Demis, they signed a pledge to never use DeepMind technology for military purposes. That has been watered down. In fact, Jeff Dean recently said, \u201cWe should not use AI for these purposes.\u201d There are people inside of Google who\u2019ve sent a letter. There seems to be a lot of big-name talents who are saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t want to commercialize this stuff in the way it\u2019s being commercialized right away.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem is that it\u2019s the governments and the militaries who are spending all the money right now, and Google is good at making money. It wants to fund AI development with actual revenue instead of raising endless amounts of debt like the startup frontier labs are doing. Is that conflict navigable for Sundar and whoever\u2019s running AI now, or is it just the reality of being a huge corporation that funds its efforts with revenue?<\/p>\n It\u2019s unfortunately not surprising to me, for a huge corporation in the US where you have to maximize shareholder value. They\u2019re subsidizing a lot of their AI efforts right now, it seems like, to me. For example, the other day I vibe coded a new website for myself and Gemini was the only tool that I could use the free version of for nine hours. I was trying to do it as an everyman, so I wasn\u2019t signing into any of them. I just said, \u201cWhich one will let me go with the free version and do a ton of stuff?\u201d It was only Gemini.<\/p>\n They\u2019re really trying to get people in their corner here and trying to change developers\u2019 loyalty, change engineers\u2019 loyalty over to them. So they need money. And to be fair, I do think they could do this a lot differently if they wanted. They\u2019re one of the largest corporations in the world and they\u2019re making a lot of money in other areas. They don\u2019t have to be doing this, but that doesn\u2019t mean they won\u2019t. And I think they will continue.<\/p>\n But I also think, like I mentioned, that\u2019s going to lead to a lot of brain drain. One of the current Google employees I spoke with said that a lot of people around him felt like losing Jeff Dean was a big blow for morality at Google, and that it also continues a brain drain they\u2019ve been seeing and that mediocrity is the likely result. So like what you were saying, they may be always catching up from now on and never forging a path ahead like they had been six months ago.<\/p>\n I think this brings me back to that framework I mentioned at the very beginning that I wanted to put a pin in. Does Google want to win at the frontier or can they just sell Google Cloud at enormous high rates to Anthropic and OpenAI while maintaining usable models for its consumer products at high rates?<\/p>\n There\u2019s a world in which Gemini is there for you to search your Gmail and provide AI overviews and be cheap enough to run to let consumers vibe code websites for nine hours at a time. But the real money is in selling TPUs in Google Cloud to Anthropic and Anthropic is going to go collect the government money and Google is just there as a vendor. They\u2019re just selling to Anthropic and OpenAI and whoever else needs data center capacity.<\/p>\n We can see Google Cloud as a business that is exploding. They don\u2019t seem to mind that they\u2019re selling their own capacity to Anthropic instead of Google\u2019s own products, which is one of the challenges of running a company that has frenemies as customers.<\/p>\n How do you see that playing out? Do you see Google ever saying, \u201cLook, we have to win at the frontier. We have to win at AGI. We have to make sure recursive self-improvement of coding occurs so the next model works,\u201d which is a religious belief inside of OpenAI and Anthropic? Or do you see them saying, \u201cActually, being one or two steps behind the frontier is fine because that\u2019ll make our products work well enough and we\u2019ll just sell capacity to the people chasing the AGI dream\u201d?<\/p>\n The way they are right now, they\u2019re going to keep chasing it because their investors want that. It makes their stock go up to say, \u201cHey, we\u2019re chasing this. We\u2019re at the frontier. We\u2019re the only large corporation that\u2019s almost or nearly or equally caught up with OpenAI and Anthropic.\u201d They don\u2019t need to go the way of Amazon and, in my opinion, Meta right now.<\/p>\n In a year or two, if they continue the brain drain and they keep falling behind, then yeah, maybe they\u2019re going to do what you said in situation two. But for now, there\u2019s no reason for them not to keep chasing, especially because that\u2019s a great thing to talk about on an earnings call and it makes all your investors happy.<\/p>\n The AGI piece is really interesting to me, especially in the context of Google. Demis Hassabis was the final speaker at Google I\/O. After an hour and a half of very practical demonstrations of AI inside of Google products, Demis came out and he talked about protein folding and drug discovery, which are the things that he really cares about. <\/p>\n And then he ended the entire presentation by saying very confidently, \u201cWe are at the foothills of the singularity.\u201d<\/a> Google doesn\u2019t say, \u201cAGI.\u201d It says, \u201cthe foothills of the singularity,\u201d which is an enormous claim.<\/p>\n I thought, \u201cBoy, that\u2019s an incredible way to end Google I\/O.\u201d And then later I sat down with Sundar and I said, \u201cDo you agree we\u2019re at the foothills of singularity? What does this mean to you?\u201d Here\u2019s what Sundar said to me.<\/p>\n Sundar Pichai: Demis and I have had long, deep conversations on this topic.<\/p>\n Nilay Patel: I figured. <\/p>\n In this context, for him, the advent of AGI is what he thinks of as the singularity and I think\u2014<\/p>\n Do you have a definition of AGI? Have you debated? Do you have an agreement?<\/p>\n We debated a lot. Both Demis and I are very close to how we think about AGI … There is a harder definition of AGI, which is that it has to more comprehensively do the wide range of tasks, including cognitive tasks, in a way that\u2019s comparable. We\u2019ll at some point actually put it out as a company, and we are working on that. But that\u2019s what he\u2019s talking about in this context.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been thinking about that answer since it happened. Do you know what Sundar\u2019s definition of AGI or the singularity is based on that?<\/p>\n It\u2019s the exact same as everyone else\u2019s. In the OpenAI lawsuit, in the materials, we saw the definition of AGI come out of that. It was published and it sounds like he\u2019s talking about the exact same thing.<\/p>\n In Microsoft and OpenAI\u2019s 2019 contract that was made public as part of the Musk v. Altman trial, it\u2019s a 36-page agreement, but luckily, finally, we\u2019re finding out their definition of AGI, which is, \u201cA highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work.\u201d It seems similar to what Sundar is saying in terms of cognitive tasks. It\u2019s just a highly autonomous system that can do a ton of economically valuable knowledge work at the same level or surpass the level of humans.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the definition I\u2019ve been working with for the past six years on the beat, and it seems like that tracks with what he\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n He said to me that Google would put out a definition of the singularity or AGI and they\u2019re working on it. As far as I know, they have not yet released this definition. I don\u2019t know if it tracks the OpenAI one. I do know that\u2019s basically what the industry says, right? That it\u2019ll be better than you and me at economically viable tasks. They\u2019ve stopped saying that. <\/p>\n Either way, we\u2019re losing our jobs, right? They\u2019ve stopped talking about it because that means we\u2019re all losing our jobs. So that\u2019s just faded into the background.<\/p>\n I bring this up because Demis is so focused on science, and in particular health outcomes, and in this announcement about him moving on to be chief scientist, Sundar repeated the phrase, \u201cWe\u2019re at the foothills of the singularity.\u201d It feels like Demis wanted to chase AGI, world models, protein folding, and all of the next things. <\/p>\n The thing that makes AI economically viable today is writing software code or automating business processes inside of Fortune 500 companies or agentic shopping or whatever boring thing Google needs to do to make money, and those things are getting ever farther apart. If you want to chase the foothills of the singularity in AGI, maybe that has nothing to do with how Google needs AI to make money today.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a big part of the Google culture clash, right? That\u2019s, \u201cWe\u2019re going to chase money and shareholder value instead of holding fast to our ideals.\u201d That\u2019s a big part of the AI industry\u2019s general chaos. How is OpenAI going to make a dollar? Who knows? It\u2019s a code red<\/a>. We\u2019re right back at the beginning.<\/p>\n How do you see it? Is it that Demis wanted another Nobel Prize<\/a>, so he led them astray and now he\u2019s getting kicked upstairs and they\u2019re going to focus on money? Or is there real validity to, \u201cWe\u2019re going to let him chase the singularity while we work on Gmail Search\u201d?<\/p>\n There\u2019s a big difference between, \u201cWe\u2019re going to let him chase the singularity,\u201d and, \u201cWe\u2019re going to let him do a lot of research into biology, drug discovery, and the other stuff he\u2019s into,\u201d and that seems to be what he\u2019s going to be doing. It seems like he and Jeff Dean are going to be doing similar things, but in very different places.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a tale as old as time. I\u2019ve been writing about this for so many years, product versus research. The big clashes, the funding, the resources. Companies want products immediately and they don\u2019t want to invest in the long-term research that sometimes leads to those products. They only want the quick, \u201cWhat are we going to turn this into? What\u2019s the timeline? Let\u2019s speed it up for products and let\u2019s compete with all of our three competitors and not really do these long side projects that may lead to something or may not.\u201d<\/p>\n The tension\u2019s building and building, especially as OpenAI and Anthropic are about to go public. Google has a lot of investors to answer to. This is a building of the tension we\u2019ve been seeing for so many years. And for what it\u2019s worth, I do think the Demis situation was probably mutual.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard rumors that maybe he wanted to leave completely<\/a>, but it would be too dramatic for him and Jeff Dean to leave at the same time. So he said, \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll go to this other role and then I\u2019ll leave later.\u201d That\u2019s just a rumor. We\u2019re not sure. But either way, it doesn\u2019t seem like he was totally kicked to the curb or kicked upstairs. It\u2019s more probably a mutual parting where he really is not that interested in products and he wants to do the long-term research, and a lot of these guys are like that.<\/p>\n It feels like a real situation where you have to be careful what you wish for, because when Sundar created Google DeepMind, he had to pick a winner, and he picked Demis over Jeff Dean. We were all waiting to see if and when Jeff Dean would leave because he didn\u2019t win, and now they\u2019re both leaving because Demis realized that actually operating inside of Google is a very different job than just doing the research.<\/p>\n One of the questions I have here in general is about DeepMind itself, which is famously headquartered in London and answers to no one. It\u2019s Google\u2019s big, fancy AI research arm with the big fancy CEO. That\u2019s getting pulled down. It\u2019s being led by an SVP who reports to Sundar now. There are some reports that maybe the center of gravity and the authority is going to move back to Mountain View to Sundar himself. How do you see that playing out inside of Google?<\/p>\n I can definitely see the winds might be changing and the Bay Area might be the headquarters again, at least in terms of power. London\u2019s autonomy has been going on for a long time. I\u2019ve visited that office multiple times. It did have a different feeling to it. It felt like there was a lot less urgency in a good way. It was really collaborative. There were a lot of long-term research questions and it was a very different feeling than the tension and the urgency I feel when I visit other AI labs\u2019 offices.<\/p>\n Maybe Sundar got tired of that and said, \u201cYou know what? I need the pressure to rise. I need products quickly. The research can only be done if it\u2019s going to lead to something that\u2019s trackable.\u201d I could definitely see the center of gravity moving to the Bay Area.<\/p>\n The reporting from inside of Google that I\u2019m most curious about is how that culture changes without these leaders. As you were saying before, Jeff Dean and Demis Hassabis were moral leaders in addition to technical leaders and research innovators. They kept Google from doing a lot of things. They\u2019re gone now. In some of your own reporting and your story on our site, there are people saying, \u201cWho will we sell out to next?\u201d <\/p>\n Sergey Brin, who\u2019s deeply involved in AI efforts, supports the Trump administration. Sundar obviously stood behind Trump at the inauguration. The questions from the staff about, \u201cWhat will we sell it next? What values are up for sale next without the culture carriers of a Demis or a Jeff Dean?\u201d seem open.<\/p>\n Are there answers? Who\u2019s taking over DeepMind now and what kind of person do we think they are?<\/p>\n It\u2019s Koray Kavukcuoglu, and these questions are super valid because I don\u2019t think Koray\u2019s going to be speaking up on this stuff. He\u2019s a product guy. He\u2019s focused on speeding up the product. I\u2019m sure he and Sundar have had a bunch of conversations about focusing on the short term.<\/p>\n Over the past few months, early this year, I was chatting with a bunch of AI employees at a ton of different companies, and they all, including employees at Google, felt like the messaging from their companies was, \u201cShut up and focus on the mission. Keep your head down. Roll stuff out. Don\u2019t worry about what\u2019s going on in the outside world politically.\u201d It seems like that\u2019s going to be even more of a thing now.<\/p>\n One of the sources I was speaking with at Google said, \u201cSpeaking out on moral issues like ICE agents and AI surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons, Jeff Dean was one of the last people who was willing to do that.\u201d And it doesn\u2019t seem like Koray\u2019s going to be really eager to take that place. These questions are really valid and I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if a lot more DeepMind people left after all these changes.<\/p>\n Let me ask you the hardest question of all to wrap it up. There\u2019s a lot of noise in the ecosystem right now saying that Google has lost the AI race. But as we said from the beginning, Google has a ton of advantages here.<\/p>\n It\u2019s making money, which most of the other companies aren\u2019t. It\u2019s selling Google Cloud infrastructure to its own best competitors. It has massive distribution advantages in Search, in Gmail, in the fact that Apple appears to have distilled Google\u2019s models for Siri. There\u2019s a lot here where Google just has structural advantages. It\u2019s playing with house money. It\u2019s a trust fund baby, as you\u2019ve said several times here.<\/p>\n Is it possible to lose the AI race from that vantage point? Or is it really just about if Anthropic gets to a point at recursive self-improvement that they can call AGI, everyone else has to lose by default?<\/p>\n It\u2019s not possible for them to fail. It\u2019s possible for them to change up their strategy. Like we were talking about earlier, maybe they become an Apple where they\u2019re running on Google AI and they\u2019re fine with that, but they\u2019re picking a different company. Same with Amazon. They\u2019ve given up a little bit, it seems like. I\u2019m going to get some flack for that. Meta\u2019s still really desperately trying, but they\u2019re behind.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think Google can fail. It\u2019s more, do they eventually realize it\u2019s not worth their time? Does the brain drain continue? Do they realize, \u201cLook, there\u2019s no amount of money we can offer to get some of the best minds back here. Let\u2019s just cut our losses\u201d? That\u2019s a little ways off. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen in the next few months or even the next year.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s important for these execs to remember that a lot of the people that are most involved and really pivotal in building this technology and keeping them at the frontier are extremely serious about their morals and what they\u2019re doing. They don\u2019t just do it for the money. It\u2019s going to be tough to resell that dream to some of them if they\u2019re trying to rehire after they lose people. OpenAI is experiencing the same thing. So we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting Demis is still there. He\u2019s the chief scientist. Presumably he will still be going to the London office and be charming, and Demis is very charming. You can see all that continuing to happen, but what are we shipping? What are the roadmaps? Who gets the GPU access? That seems like it will change and that will have some downstream effect.<\/p>\n If you had to look for signs, is Google succeeding or failing, is the culture a problem or are they just retrenching to go and be even more aggressive? What kinds of things would you look for right now?<\/p>\n What I typically look for is what they\u2019re really offering every time they have a big release and how pivotal it really is. Are they doing something that their competitors did six months ago? And are they even doing that well? That\u2019s how I think about these things sometimes. There will be a big release from an AI company or a big tech company that\u2019s trying to catch up in the AI race. Sometimes it\u2019s six months behind OpenAI or Anthropic, and sometimes the stuff that they\u2019re really excited about is pretty bad.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what I would be watching from Google. With Gemini 4, what can it really do? Does it have that same effect that Gemini 3 had on the industry<\/a>, where it\u2019s leading for at least a week or two? Or does it not even have an hour of lead time and it just falls flat and it\u2019s used by the enterprises that they work with and no one\u2019s really excited about it? That\u2019s the type of thing I\u2019d be looking for.<\/p>\n I\u2019d also be looking for the exodus. If a ton of the DeepMind engineers leave, if they\u2019re desperately trying to hire and offering more and more desperate pay packages, that\u2019s another sign. Whenever Demis leaves \u2014 and that will eventually happen \u2014 that\u2019s a huge sign.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll be looking out for all that. I\u2019m confident that the chaos in the AI industry will continue, and Hayden, you\u2019ll be back on Decoder. Thank you so much for joining me today.<\/p>\n Questions or comments? Hit us up at decoder@theverge.com. 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