AI can help write boring emails, speed up coding, and even decide who gets promoted at one of the world’s largest companies.
In an episode of the “All In” podcast released on Tuesday, Google cofounder Sergey Brin said he has been using AI for some of his leadership tasks since returning to the company.
“Management is like the easiest thing to do with the AI,” Brin said.
Brin cofounded Google with Larry Page in 1998 and served as its president until stepping down in 2019. He returned to the search giant in 2023 to help develop AI products as the company races against startup competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity.
On the podcast, Brin shared two ways he has been using AI for managing people at Gemini, Google’s large language model team: delegating tasks and finding top performers.
Brin used an AI to condense group chat messages.
“It could suck down a whole chat space and then answer pretty complicated questions,” he said. “I was like: ‘OK, summarize this for me. OK, now assign something for everyone to work on.'”
Brin said that there were a few giveaways that he was using AI when he pasted things back into the chat, but it “worked remarkably well.”
Brin said he also asked the AI tool who in the group chat should get promoted.
“It actually picked out this young woman engineer who I didn’t even notice, she wasn’t very vocal,” he said. “I talked to the manager, actually, and he was like, ‘Yeah, you know what? You’re right. Like she’s been working really hard, did all these things.'”
“I think that ended up happening, actually,” Brin said of the promotion.
In the wide-ranging discussion about AI, Brin said AI could do certain things “much better” than humans, including tasks he is skilled at, such as math and coding.
He did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
How tech execs use AI
Brin joins a number of executives incorporating AI in their day-to-day work.
Earlier this month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he uses tools like ChatGPT and Gemini like a “tutor” every day.
“In areas that are fairly new to me, I might say, ‘Start by explaining it to me like I’m a 12-year-old,’ and then work your way up into a doctorate-level over time,” Huang said.
This week, Duolingo’s chief technology officer said that AI is part of his three-step leadership principle. Once he decides a task must be done, he tries to see if it can be automated with ChatGPT.
Still, not every tech executive is ready to outsource their management duties to AI just yet.
LinkedIn’s chief operating officer, Dan Shapero, told Business Insider last month that he still likes to do the “human parts” of his job.
“While AI has shown that it can synthesize information, I’m not sure that it’s shown that it can inspire a team or that it can connect with people at a deeper level,” Shapero said.
