Google cofounder Sergey Brin has officially returned from retirement, working “pretty much every day now” at the tech giant to help develop its artificial intelligence products as the company races to dominate the generative AI landscape. Speaking at Google’s I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Brin made a surprise appearance alongside DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, where he revealed the extent of his involvement in Google’s AI efforts since 2023. The 51-year-old tech founder left Alphabet in 2019 but returned following OpenAI’s ChatGPT release in 2022, which sent shockwaves through the industry.“Honestly, anybody who’s a computer scientist should not be retired right now,” Brin told Big Technology’s Alex Kantrowitz during the live interview. “There’s just never been a greater, sort of, problem and opportunity — greater cusp of technology.”
Brin’s helping Google in its race toward AGI
Brin’s comeback isn’t just about keeping pace with competitors. He’s directly involved in training Google’s latest Gemini models, leveraging his technical expertise to push the boundaries of AI capabilities. The company has ambitious goals for its AI assistant.“We fully intend that Gemini will be the very first AGI,” Brin declared, referring to artificial general intelligence—a milestone where machines can solve human tasks across various domains.During a September 2024 fireside chat at the All-In Summit, Brin had already hinted at his deep involvement, confirming he was back at Google working on AI. He explained that while Google historically used smaller, task-specific AI models, “the trend is to have a more unified model.”
From retirement projects to AI leadership
The return to full-time work represents a dramatic shift for Brin, whose retirement included ventures like airship startup LTA Research, funding Parkinson’s disease research, and real estate investments. Now he’s focused on one of tech’s most competitive battlegrounds.Google faces enormous computational demands as it scales its AI capabilities. “For us, we’re building out compute as quickly as we can. We just have a huge amount of demand,” Brin noted in 2024, revealing that Google has had to turn down cloud customers due to resource constraints.Having witnessed the evolution from Web 1.0 to today’s AI revolution, Brin considers artificial intelligence “far more exciting” than previous technological advances and believes it will have a greater impact on the world than anything he’s experienced in his decades-long career.
