Sundar Pichai CEO of Google: AI prone to errors

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Interview—Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google: "AI prone to errors"

BBC World Service | Host: Faisal Islam | Date: November 21, 2025

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Overview of the Episode's Theme

This episode features a candid conversation between BBC's Economics Editor Faisal Islam and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, recorded at Google's headquarters in California. The discussion delves deep into the current state and future trajectory of artificial intelligence (AI), Google's leadership in the AI revolution, the technology's risks (including errors and trust concerns), its implications for jobs and the environment, and the societal and regulatory responsibilities of Big Tech leaders in this pivotal era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Scale and Significance of the AI Boom

• Enormous Investments:

  • Pichai highlights the exponential growth in AI infrastructure, noting,

    “Maybe four years ago, Google was spending less than $30 billion per year. This year that number is going to be over $90 billion... Collectively, well over a trillion dollars of investment.” (04:30)

  • The next few years will build as much infrastructure as the past two decades combined.

• Is it a Bubble?

  • Pichai draws parallels between the current AI surge and the dot-com era:

    “There are moments we overshoot, right? Collectively as an industry... But none of us would question whether the Internet was profound or did it drive a lot of impact. It’s fundamentally changed how we work... I expect AI to be the same.” (02:54 & 05:24)

• No Company is Immune:

  • Despite Google’s leading position, Pichai cautions against hubris:

    “No company is going to be immune, including us. If you over invest, you’ll have to work through that phase.” (06:51)

2. Capabilities and Societal Impact of AI

• What Can AI Actually Do?

  • The potential for “agentic” AI is imminent—tools that not only converse but accomplish multi-step tasks autonomously:

    “In the next 12 months, you will see they are able to do more complex tasks for you. That’s where it gets really interesting.” (08:05)

  • Humorous exchange on AI replacing CEOs:

    Faisal Islam: “Okay, so still CEOs are safe in their, in their jobs, I think.”
    Sundar Pichai: “I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things... for AI to do one day.” (09:01)

• Job Disruption:

  • Acknowledges widespread anxiety about automation’s impact:

    “We will have to work through societal disruptions... Certain jobs and people will need to adapt... As a society, we need to be having those conversations.” (10:35)

  • Advice for the next generation:

    “I would encourage the next generation to embrace the technology, learn to use it... People who will learn to adapt to AI will do better.” (11:23)

3. Accuracy, Trust, and Responsible Development

• Admitting the Flaws:

  • AI is still unreliable, with notable errors:

    “These AI models... are prone to errors.” (12:17)

• Notable Quote—On Trust:

  “You have to learn to use these tools for what they are good at and not blindly trust everything they say.” (12:48)

• Responsibility and the Integrity of Information:

  • On the risk of eroding information reliability:

    “If you only construct systems standalone and you only rely on that, that would be true. Which is why I think the information ecosystem has to be much richer than just having AI technology being the sole product in it.” (13:38)

• Defending Journalism:

  “Truth matters. Journalism matters. All of the surrounding things we have today matters.” (13:54)

4. Environmental Considerations

• AI’s Immense Energy Demands:

  • Pichai describes Google’s investments in nuclear and renewable energy and frames energy investments as an opportunity:

    “We are investing to develop new sources of energy… The amount of R and D dollars, capital investments going in these new sources of energy I think will actually accelerate.” (15:52)

• Update on Net Zero Pledge:

  • Alphabet’s progress towards 2030 net zero has slowed:

    “Some of the progress... will be impacted because we are seeing a much faster than expected growth... But we are meeting the moment by investing in all these new technologies.” (17:17)

5. Content, Copyright, and Fair Use

• Content Scraping and Fair Use:

  • Tech companies are moving toward frameworks respecting creators’ rights:

    “We are committed to copyright frameworks... When we train, we give people an opportunity to opt out... We are in the process of working with the industry to create newer frameworks.” (18:05)

• Transparency for Creators:

  • Pichai maintains that users can opt out of content being used for AI training:

    “We do give people those rights.” (19:20)

6. Tech Industry Power and Political Influence

• Perceptions of Tech-Power Nexus:

  • On the proximity of tech leaders to political power:

    “We are deeply committed to engaging constructively... Not only in the U.S. but with other governments around the world. I think this is an important moment... I think you have to bring in all stakeholders.” (19:54)

• Immigration and Innovation:

  • Addressing U.S. visa restrictions and the vital role of immigrants:

    “The contribution of immigrants to the sector has been nothing but phenomenal… I think we’ll be able to continue investing.” (21:15)

7. Breakthroughs and Future Technologies

• Looking Beyond AI Chatbots:

  • Celebrates advances in self-driving technology and AlphaFold’s revolutionary impact on biology:

    “There are many biologists and chemists around the world using it to better discover new drugs.” (22:07)
    “It would take one PhD, their entire PhD to do one protein. And we have done around 300 million proteins in a matter of few months and we've made it openly available.” (22:48)

• Anecdotal Wonder:

  • Pichai shares a touching story about his father’s experience with an autonomous Waymo car:

    “The fact that I recently had my dad in a Waymo car, he's over 80... Seeing him experience it helped me understand the progress we all take for granted.” (23:25)

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Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• On the Scale of AI Investment:

  "In the next couple of years, we'll end up building what we probably built in the past 10 to 20 years."
  — Sundar Pichai (04:30)

• On AI Hype and Rationality:

  "There are moments we overshoot... I expect AI to be the same [as the Internet]... both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this."
  — Sundar Pichai (05:24)

• On Trusting AI Outputs:

  "These AI models... are prone to errors... so you have to learn to use these tools for what they are good at and not blindly trust everything they say."
  — Sundar Pichai (12:17–12:48)

• On Creator Rights:

  "We are in the process of working with the industry to create newer frameworks... We've always incorporated an approach to deliver value back to content rights holders."
  — Sundar Pichai (18:05)

• On Energy and Optimism:

  "AI is dramatically increasing demand for energy... But that is driving extraordinary investments in solar, in battery technology, in nuclear technology and other sources."
  — Sundar Pichai (15:52)

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Notable Moments (with Timestamps)

• [04:30] Explosive growth in AI infrastructure spend and what that means for the next decade.
• [06:51] Admission that no company, not even Google, is immune from industry cycles.
• [08:05–09:05] Forecast that new AI agents may soon perform complex tasks — even suggesting CEOs aren’t immune.
• [11:23] Advice to young people: embrace and adapt with AI, regardless of career.
• [12:17–12:48] Open acknowledgment that state-of-the-art AI still gets things wrong, with responsibility on the user not to blindly trust.
• [13:54] Explicit defense of journalism and a balanced information ecosystem.
• [15:52–17:17] Discussion of AI’s environmental costs and Google’s strategies to mitigate them.
• [18:05–19:20] Deep dive on content use, creator rights, and evolving copyright practices.
• [21:15] Pichai’s perspective as an immigrant CEO on the US crackdown on foreign worker visas.
• [22:07–22:48] Celebrating AlphaFold’s achievements in biology and what it signals about the future.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a revealing, balanced look at the triumphs and tensions of leading the world’s most prominent AI company in an era of explosive technological, business, and social change. Pichai exudes optimism, admits the challenges and uncertainties ahead, and openly grapples with the implications of the transformative tools under his stewardship. The conversation is rich with insights, warnings, and a plea for responsible, collaborative development as AI reshapes the world.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Sundar Pichai]

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[Faisal Islam]

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[Faisal Islam]

Hello, I'm Faisal Islam, the BBC's economics editor, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. I'm disappointed in him.

[Sundar Pichai]

He had a deal done four times and then you go home and you see just attack a nursing home in Kiev. I said, what the hell was that all about?

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I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was defining me.

[Faisal Islam]

But I was still 15 years old.

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And I did not know who I was.

[Faisal Islam]

I love singing and so my goal was always to do better and better at it. Today we are spending trillions on war and peanuts on peace. For this interview, I met Sundar Pichai, boss of Google, at the tech giant's headquarters in California. He is the chief executive of Alphabet holding company for Google and other subsidiaries, which sits at the forefront of the AI revolution, a technology he describes as the most profound that humanity has ever worked on that will change how we live and work. But he also acknowledges the risks that come with artificial intelligence. Some AI models are still prone to errors, he warns, and should not be blindly trusted. There is the impact on jobs, but also on the climate, thanks to AI's immense energy needs. Mr. Pichai admits Alphabet's progress towards its target of achieving net zero by 2030 has slowed, but the goal remains in place. The tech industry, he tells me, is at an extraordinary moment. With trillions being invested in artificial intelligence, Alphabet's shares have doubled in value. In recent months, reaching $3.5 trillion earlier this month. But Sundar Pichai warns no company, not even his, would be immune if the bubble were to burst.

[Sundar Pichai]

I look at the actual progress we are making in terms of the model capabilities and the progress is palpably exciting. And given the potential of this technology, the excitement is very rational. It's also true when we go through these investment cycles, you know, there are moments we overshoot, right? Collectively as an industry. We can look back at the Internet right now. There was clearly a lot of excess investment. But none of us would question whether the Internet was profound or did it drive a lot of impact. It's fundamentally changed how we work digitally as a society. I expect AI to be the same. So I think it's both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this.

[Faisal Islam]

Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Sundar Pichai.

[Sundar Pichai]

It's an extraordinary moment, even by Silicon Valley standards. You know, every decade or so, you know, you have this inflection points, you know, you have a new technology was a personal computer at one point, the Internet coming in the late 90s. Then it was mobile. Then it's been cloud, what we call this cloud now. It's the clearly the era of AI.

[Faisal Islam]

And just a sense of the scale. Clearly the metric that people kind of go to is the market cap. These are extraordinary numbers for you. 3 1/2 trillion, Nvidia at 5 trillion. The sheer amount of investment going in give us a sense of scale.

[Sundar Pichai]

One way to think about the scale is that what we are all investing in capital to build out the infrastructure that's needed for artificial intelligence. You know, maybe four years ago, Google was spending less than $30 billion per year. This year that number is going to be over $90 billion. If you collectively add what all the companies are doing, we have well over a trillion dollars of investment going in building the infrastructure for this moment. And one way I think about it is in the next couple of years, we'll end up building what we probably built in the past 10 to 20 years. So that gives you the scale at which this is ramping up.

[Faisal Islam]

Now, you mentioned some of those phases of technological advancement that happened with much market excitement as well. And the obvious question is, around the whole of this country and the whole world right now is, is it a bubble?

[Sundar Pichai]

Look, the two ways of thinking about the question. I look at the actual progress we are making in terms of the model capabilities, and the progress is palpably exciting. And people are using this. We are Deploying it in our products. Consumers are excited about using it. We are giving it to companies, they're using it to make their companies better. So you see real demand and we are constrained in our ability to serve that demand. And given the potential of this technology, the excitement is very rational. It's also true when we go through these investment cycles, you know, there are moments we overshoot, right Collectively as an industry. We can look back at the Internet right now, There was clearly a lot of excess investment. But none of us would question whether the Internet was profound or did it drive a lot of impact. It's fundamentally changed how we work digitally as a society. I expect AI to be the same. So I think it's both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this.

[Faisal Islam]

You just described your excitement about Google's kind of hardware, which is the key scarce resource. I guess would your argument be. I guess it would be that whatever happens, whatever appears to be a frothy, exotic deal from one of your competitors, Google will be immune from any bursting of the bubble because of your spectrum of investments across all technologies.

[Sundar Pichai]

No company is going to be immune, including us. If you over invest, you know, we'll have to work through that phase but you know, we are, I think we are better positioned for. For many years we have taken a deeply differentiated approach to how we have approached AI. One of the first things I did as CEO was to shift the company to what I called as an AI first approach. And part of that was doing all the parts of what it takes to build great AI technology. So we call it a full stack approach. You can think of it as a soup to nuts approach, all the way from the underlying physical infrastructure to the research that you need to do to drive this technology forward to deploying it in products and platforms, be it search, be it in YouTube, be it in Android and so on, right? And so we have taken the deep approach so we are able to invest at scale and make it work across all these products and businesses. And I think so we are better positioned to take a long term view and approach this moment.

[Faisal Islam]

Let's take that and then let's try and sum up if you like, the ultimate power of the tools you have built for people at home. How effective could it be? Could an AI agent do your job at some point?

[Sundar Pichai]

Look, I think where we are is right now you can interact with this AI, ask questions, go back and forth and have these intelligent exchanges on many, many topics. I think the next step in the next 12 months you will see they are able to do more complex tasks for you. So that's where it gets really interesting. You know, I have to go shop something. I have to buy a birthday gift for my spouse and you know, can I ask this chatbot to go do that? Right. So that kind of what we call agentic experience, this is what we are all excited about down the line. That means there are moments that can help you make a decision, Right. Like, you know, it could be, should I invest in the stock or my doctor is recommending a treatment and how should I think about the pros and cons of the treatment? So those are all real tangible use cases. There is still work to be done to unlock those capabilities. But that's the journey which has been so exciting to see.

[Faisal Islam]

Okay, so still CEOs are safe in their, in their jobs, I think.

[Sundar Pichai]

I think what a CEO does is maybe one of the easier things to maybe for AI to do one day.

[Faisal Islam]

But the whole point of the value and productivity kind of offer to companies that are buying all your goods and your services is to automate many human tasks, is it not?

[Sundar Pichai]

Let me put it this way, right? I think people today are juggling many things, right? And people are overloaded. We've always had back in the history, you know, it could be a dishwasher coming to your home. I remember growing up, you know, when we got our first refrigerator in the home, how much it radically changed my mom's life. You can view it as it automating some, but, you know, it freed her up to do other things, right? So let's take the example of a radiologist. The number of scans people are getting is growing year on year, and the number of images per scan is also rising pretty significantly. How do you help a radiologist cope up with this increased demand? Maybe an AI tool can help that way. So I think that's what you will see, more or less.

[Faisal Islam]

I get it, you want to focus on the win wins. But it's many people, many aspirational middle classes across the west are thinking, hang on a minute, it's affecting lawyers jobs, it's affecting creative industries, it's affecting accounting jobs. It's affecting journalism too. It's affecting the media in general. And they're surprised by it and they're wondering, do you know which jobs are going to be safer? Have you got an idea?

[Sundar Pichai]

Two things. One is, first of all, look, I said many years ago, AI is the most profound technology humanity is ever working on. It has potential for extraordinary benefits. And we will have to work through societal Disruptions and you are highlighting it will end up creating new opportunities. It will evolve and transition. Certain jobs and people will need to adapt and then there will be areas where it will impact some jobs. So as a society, I think we need to be having those conversations. And part of it is, how do you develop this technology responsibly and give society time to adapt as we absorb this technology? I think these are all very, very important and fair questions.

[Faisal Islam]

Just very practically, parents don't know what to advise their kids anymore. Just to ride out this airwave, give us some tips.

[Sundar Pichai]

Based on what I see, I won't change anything of how we've always thought. I think there's going to be a wide variety of disciplines which will end up mattering. I would encourage the next generation to embrace the technology, learn to use it in the context of what you do. And I think people who will learn to adopt and adapt to AI will do better. It doesn't matter whether you want to be a teacher, a doctor, all those professions will be around. But the people who will do well in each of those professions are people who learn how to use these tools.

[Faisal Islam]

All of the hopes, the hype, the valuations, the social benefit of this transformation you've just described built on a central assumption that the technology functions, that it works. Let me propose one simple test of Gemini, which is your booming chatgpt kind of competitor. Is it accurate? Always. Does it, does it tell the truth?

[Sundar Pichai]

Look, we are working hard from a scientific standpoint to ground it in real world information. Part of what we have done with Gemini is we have brought the power of Google Search. So it uses Google Search as a tool to give answers more accurately. But there are moments these AI models fundamentally have a technology by which they're predicting what's next and they are prone to errors.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah, and you know some of the examples. There is an example of glue as a pizza ingredient. A sitting senator wrongly accused of assault. I mean, this is bad, isn't it?

[Sundar Pichai]

I think we take pride in the amount of work we put in to give as accurate information as possible. But the current state of the art AI technology is prone to some errors. This is why people also use Google Search and we have other products which are more grounded in providing accurate information. But the same tools are helpful if you want to creatively write something. So you have to learn to use these tools for what they are good at and not blindly trust everything they say.

[Faisal Islam]

Okay, don't blindly trust, but let me suggest to you that you have a special responsibility because this whole Model, transformer model. The T in ChatGPT was invented here under you and you know that it's a probability. And I just wonder if you accept the end result of all this fantastic investment is that information is less reliable.

[Sundar Pichai]

If you only construct systems standalone and you only rely on that, that would be true. Which is why I think the information ecosystem has to be much richer than just having AI technology being the sole product in it.

[Faisal Islam]

Sure. Truth matters.

[Sundar Pichai]

Yeah, yeah, truth matters. Journalism matters. All of the surrounding things we have today matters. Right.

[Faisal Islam]

You're listening to the interview from the BBC World. People shaping our world from all over the world.

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[Faisal Islam]

For this episode of the interview, I'm speaking to Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google. He's not a showman like Elon Musk of Tesla or the black leather jacketed Jensen Huang of Nvidia. He's fairly softly spoken, cerebral, geeky even. And I felt that this was a very candid conversation. CEOs are getting used to not answering questions from actual journalists and answering them from their fellow CEOs or investors. Only a year ago, Google was seen as under threat. Its essential business model of search being challenged by ChatGPT, its share price actually not enjoying the same sort of booms as some of the other big tech giants. And I think he feels some vindication right now about Google's share price and the appreciation for some of its technology because it certainly wasn't there a year ago. Okay, let's return to my conversation with Sundar Pichai. The scale of the AI buildout is creating another trade off, not just for you, but for humanity. On energy. I think this is an opportunity to be frank, Mr. Pichai, with the world, is there a new calculus now? Is the build out of AI more important than climate over time?

[Sundar Pichai]

I don't think, you know, this doesn't need to be a trade off or a zero sum game. I think one of the things I'm excited about because the energy needs through this transformation is so immense. We as well as others are, you know, we are investing to develop new sources of energy. We just finished signing the largest corporate purchase for nuclear fusion energy. We have many purchase agreements for energy from small modular nuclear reactors. We are using geothermal energy in our data centers. So the amount of dollars, R and D dollars, capital investments going in these new sources of energy I think will actually accelerate. So you're right, I is dramatically increasing demand for energy in a way that the current systems can't fully cope up. But that is driving extraordinary investments in solar, in battery technology, in nuclear technology and other sources. So I think, you know, I am as a technologist, I'm optimistic through this moment that we will have abundant sources of renewable energy in the future.

[Faisal Islam]

I mean by the end of the decade, I think more energy will use by data centers than the whole of India. 50% more than all of the EV fleet. You've sort of parked or dropped your 2030 sustainability net zero target.

[Sundar Pichai]

No, we, we still have it. We, you know, we publish progress reports against it. You are right. Some of the progress, the rate at which we were hoping to make progress will be impacted because we are seeing a much faster than expected growth in the underlying build out. But we are meeting the moment by investing in all these new technologies. And so I think that's how we are trying to make it work.

[Faisal Islam]

Another key fuel for the AI boom is obviously the content that is trained on. And the tech companies including Google have relied on fair use and have sort of scraped books, music journalism and is sort of selling back some of that expertise to the world. Do you accept that companies like Google will have to end up paying in some way for that throughout?

[Sundar Pichai]

First of all to step back. I think it is so important as we go through this that we both help drive creativity and innovation. But we have to do that in a framework which respects creators rights as well as a love for transformative use to deliver benefits to society. I think we are committed to copyright frameworks in all the countries we operate in today. When we train, we give people an opportunity to opt out of the training and we honor copyright in terms of how our outputs are generated. And we are in the process of working with the industry to create newer frameworks as we move through it. And for example, in YouTube we've always incorporated an approach to deliver value back to content rights holders. We will apply those same principles through this AI moment and I think it's super important to do that. And so we are committed to getting it right.

[Faisal Islam]

In the US it's basically been settled in the courts in the uk In Europe, there's a debate about whether legislation is necessary. You have famous pop stars like Sir Elton John thanks thievery on the high scale. If someone wants to use my song asked and have transparency in how it's used, are you willing to do that?

[Sundar Pichai]

Today we allow anything. We train, you know, people. People can choose whether their content is opted into that training or not. So we do give people those rights.

[Faisal Islam]

I want to take you back to the beginning of this year, to that totemic kind of tech bro photo of Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk and yourself in the seats of honor at the President's inauguration. You're already powerful. You have access to what is now the world's most powerful technological tool and now not being maybe counterbalanced by political power, but some would say joined at the hip. Can you see why that makes many people uncomfortable?

[Sundar Pichai]

Look, I think if I were to speak about the US it is an extraordinary moment in terms of this AI technology. I think it has tremendous opportunities to deliver benefits to the economy. It matters from a national security standpoint. As one of the leading technology companies which is pioneering and driving progress in AI, we are deeply committed to engaging constructively in the U.S. president Trump has been very clear in the importance of this technology and has articulated a clear AI action plan with multiple aspects to it to deliver benefits to the country. So we are deeply engaged as a company of our scale should, and not only in the US but with other governments around the world. I think this is an important moment. And not just us, the leading companies which are building this technology. I think it's important we are engaging with the government in a way that this technology is going to translate to deliver benefits for society, including thinking through concerns around potential misuse of the technology. So I think we are going to need deep, industry wide frameworks. As a company, we want to engage with the governments, with nonprofits. I think you have to bring in all stakeholders into this on a specific issue.

[Faisal Islam]

What will the impact be of the White House's crackdown on foreign worker visas on your company and the sector? How do you, how do you feel personally as someone who arrived on an H1B visa?

[Sundar Pichai]

Look, if you go look at many of the fundamental breakthroughs, many of them are immigrants. If you look at the history of technology development, the contribution of immigrants to the sector has been nothing but phenomenal. But I do think the government understands it. I think there's a framework by which we all can still bring talented individuals. I think they're making changes to address some of the shortcomings in the current program and I think we'll be able to continue investing.

[Faisal Islam]

Okay, well, the last time The BBC was here a few years ago. You had already invented the core technology that would go on to become Chatbots and Gemini. And at that time no one, no one really heard of it outside of, outside of Google. And yet it's transformed the world quite clearly. Is there anything similar you've got buried away in the labs with the white coats now that we should, we should know about?

[Sundar Pichai]

Look, I mean we are working on a range all the way from, you know, our self driving technology is making extraordinary progress and it already showing safety benefits. And I think scaling up the technology will avoid a lot of human fatalities, which I think and has a lot of societal benefits. I genuinely think what we call in this umbrella is AI. You know, we didn't even talk about things like AlphaFold, which won the Nobel Prize and which is helping. There are many, many biologists and chemists around the world using it to better discover new drugs.

[Faisal Islam]

Is this right? Hundreds of millions of years of PhD research in a few months. That's right.

[Sundar Pichai]

That's exactly right. It would take one PhD, their entire PhD to do one protein. And we have done around 300 million proteins in a matter of few months and we've made it openly available to everyone. I think in some ways we can take progress here for granted. We all used to talk about the Turing Test. We've kind of gone past it and no one talks about it. If I had told five years ago to people that if you go to San Francisco there'll be many driverless cars driving around without anybody in the driver's seat, people wouldn't have believed it. It just happened.

[Faisal Islam]

Hang on, didn't they start honking at each other? Were they talking to each other? Were they communicating?

[Sundar Pichai]

I hope not. I don't quite think so. But you know, are they alive? But you know, maybe. Look, we are using AI to better understand how dolphins communicate, et cetera and like, you know, so I do think there'll be serendipitous moments like that. But it's exciting and what is important is as humans we adapt to these technologies. The fact that I recently had my dad in a Waymo car, he is over 80 years old. The wonder I was in the back and he was in the front. Seeing him experience it helped me understand the progress we all take for granted. I think there are going to be many such wonderful things in the future.

[Faisal Islam]

Thank you for listening to the interview from the BBC World Service. You'll find more in depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including episodes with former US Vice President Kamala Harris, cycling champion Sir Bradley Wiggins, and Russian punk activist Maria Alyakhina. Until the next time. Bye for now.

[Sundar Pichai]

Hello, it's Ray Winstone.

[Faisal Islam]

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