Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that former Google president Sergey Brin has been helping the company strengthen its AI capabilities. Brin was brought in to firefight when the “Code Red” alarm went off at Google since it has not been able to prosper technologically after the LaMDA fiasco in the summer of 2022. Earlier this year in January, while Silicon Valley was busy laying off its employees, search giant Brin filed his first request in years for access to code and has been working on project Gemini, a ChatGPT rival.

Brin and fellow cofounder Larry Page were first called on for support in December 2022 after the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The former executives got involved when CEO Sundar Pichai issued a “code red” upending existing plans and jump-starting AI development The New York Times reported. Since then the company rolled out 100 AI-powered features and devices at the Google I/O alone but still has no strong contender in the ongoing AI race which has shaken the IT behemoths out of their routine. The company’s entrant Bard has not been able to impress the users and has been labeled ‘dry’ and ‘worse than ChatGPT’. 

Since stepping back from the company’s day-to-day responsibilities in 2019, this is the first time Brin has been frequently visiting the headquarters in Mountain-view. His re-engagement underscores how seriously the tech company is taking the looming threat from OpenAI and others. Brin has been reportedly working with AI researchers on secret AI project Gemini.  Pichai is “excited” and has offered “encouragement” to Brin for his involvement with the company’s AI research.

Pichai Not a Wartime CEO

Back in 2011, venture capitalist Ben Horowitz called former CEO Eric Schmidt the pinnacle of peacetime CEO, and now in the recent past, Pichai has been facing criticism about his leadership. The company employees went after Pichai, referring to him announcing Bard as, “rushed”, “botched” and “un-Googley”. The Paris event in February hit the company on the heels with plummeting stocks resulting in a $100 billion expense. 

During the same period, popular AI researchers at Google like Hyung Won Chung, Jason Wei, Shane Gu, and others decided to turn their back on the IT company and joined Sam Altman led OpenAI. 

The departures, plummeting stock and the rising popularity of OpenAI’s chatbot made several experts question Pichai’s leadership as a wartime CEO. But this is not the first time Pichai has weathered such a storm. Google executives have long grumbled about his apparent aversion for risk and slow decision-making, as evidenced in a The New York Times profile published in 2021. At the time, Google defended Pichai by noting that internal surveys about his leadership were positive. But the rising whispers of Googler’s annoyance states otherwise. 

Brin’s AI vision

In 2002, Larry Page said, “Google will fulfil its mission only when its search engine is AI-complete”. Taking his fellow co-founder’s vision forward Brin has been actively working in the company’s AI operations. Even with a lengthy, exhaustive list of AI offerings, the company has not been able to release a product convincing enough. In 2016, a few months after Pichai became the company’s CEO, he proclaimed: Google, whose name had become synonymous with search, would now be an “AI-first” company. Seven years later, with AI being the centre of every new product being released, it’s high time for Pichai to take his words seriously. The company, which should have dominated the field, have taken a beating by new entrants like OpenAI. 

The company has yet to make a big splash as huge expectations are attached to its name. It is taking a ‘bold’ and ‘responsible’ approach with the recent updates in Bard and other products. With Brin still lurking around the headquarters, its AI research is in safe hands.