Report: Sergey Brin taking more active AI role at Google

Abner Li | Jul 20 2023 - 7:13 pm PT

It emerged at the start of this year that cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were involved in planning Google’s AI strategy. A new report today details just how active Brin has been recently.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Sergey Brin has been “visiting the tech giant’s Mountain View, Calif., offices in recent months generally three to four days a week.”

The cofounder, who is officially just a board member and Alphabet’s second-largest individual shareholder behind Page, is specifically working with researchers developing Gemini, Google DeepMind’s next-generation foundation model.

Officially announced at I/O 2023 in May, Google said Gemini is “created from the ground up to be multimodal, highly efficient at tool and API integrations and built to enable future innovations, like memory and planning.” Meant to counter OpenAI’s GPT-4, it’s still in training, with the WSJ reporting that it will be available later this year. Like PaLM 2, Google plans to make it available at various sizes and capabilities.

Brin is discussing technical matters, convening weekly internal discussions of new AI research, appearing at research gatherings, and “intervened in personnel matters, such as the hiring of sought-after researchers.”

He’s spending time in the new Charleston East building where AI teams sit, with CEO Sundar Pichai also having an office there. The WSJ adds that: “Pichai is excited about Brin’s involvement and has encouraged his contributions, according to a person familiar with his thinking.”