In an interview with Bloomberg in San Francisco, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai addressed concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) could lead to half of the company’s 180,000 employees being laid off. Pichai dismissed such fears as unfounded and instead emphasized that Alphabet is set to grow even more in the coming years.
Pichai highlighted that AI technology is not about replacing humans but about enhancing productivity:
“I expect we’ll continue growing even next year, coming out of our current engineering phase, because this enables us to get more work done.”
According to him, AI allows engineers to focus on more valuable and impactful projects by freeing them from time-consuming and repetitive tasks. Pichai characterized AI as an “accelerator” that speeds up product development, rather than a force that replaces the workforce. This, he noted, could ultimately lead to the creation of even more jobs.
That said, Alphabet has implemented certain layoffs in recent years. In 2025, these layoffs have been more targeted – about 100 people were let go from the Google Cloud division earlier in the year, followed by hundreds more from the Platforms and Devices division. For context, 12,000 employees were laid off in 2023, and at least 1,000 in 2024.
Pichai also pointed to several areas where Alphabet sees strong potential for future expansion:
Waymo – autonomous transportation technologies
Quantum computing initiatives
YouTube – especially experiencing strong growth in India, with over 100 million channels and 15,000 channels surpassing 1 million subscribers
He acknowledged that AI’s impact on future employment cannot be denied. In response to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s remark that AI could replace half of all entry-level office jobs within five years, Pichai stated:
“I respect these concerns… It’s important to voice and discuss them.”
When asked about the potential of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – an AI that can think across domains like a human – Pichai responded cautiously:
“There’s a lot of progress ahead of us… but in technology, there are always moments of sustained progress followed by plateaus. Are we fully advancing toward AGI? It’s too early to say definitively.”
Pichai’s remarks reinforce the notion that AI will not fully replace human labor but will instead empower the workforce and open up new opportunities. At the same time, he acknowledges the real concerns surrounding AI and stresses the importance of open dialogue. Alphabet’s strategic focus remains on innovation and diversification not only through AI but across other key technological domains as well.
