Google co-founder Sergey Brin has revealed how AI recently helped him identify an employee for promotion, someone he hadn’t even noticed before. According to Business Insider, Brin shared this anecdote on a recent episode of the “All In” podcast, offering a rare glimpse into how AI is quietly transforming leadership at the highest levels of tech.
Since rejoining Google in 2023 to work closely with its AI efforts, Brin has been experimenting with ways to integrate AI into routine managerial tasks. Speaking candidly on the podcast, he said, “Management is actually one of the easiest things for AI to handle.” And one of those tasks involved using AI to sift through group chats and summarise conversations.
He explained how the tool was able to process entire chat threads and then answer questions or assign responsibilities based on the content. But what stood out most was what happened when he asked the AI to recommend someone for a promotion. The AI flagged a quiet but hardworking engineer—a young woman Brin admitted he hadn’t paid much attention to because she wasn’t particularly vocal in group settings.
Curious, Brin approached the team manager about the recommendation. “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,” he said. “I think that ended up happening, actually,” Brin added while talking about the promotion.
Brin’s experience mirrors a growing change among tech leaders who are now openly embracing AI as a daily productivity tool. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, for instance, recently described using ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini as personal tutors, helping him understand new topics from the basics all the way up to expert level.
Duolingo’s CTO also said AI is a core part of his leadership strategy, he first decides if something needs to be done, and then sees if AI can handle it. But this approach isn’t without its sceptics. LinkedIn’s COO Dan Shapero, for instance, believes some parts of leadership should still remain human. “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.”
As for Brin, the incident is just one of many ways he’s testing how far AI can go in changing decision-making at Google. Whether it’s writing emails, delegating tasks, or now, helping make promotion decisions, AI’s influence inside tech boardrooms is no longer hypothetical, it’s already here.