Why we focus on AI (and to what end)

Editor's Note: Today we published a piece outlining our perspective on the beneficial and transformational potential of AI, and our focus on being bold and responsible in both developing it and bringing it to users and society.

AI, which we sometimes describe as the science of making things smart, powers all Google's core products — including Google Search, Google Photos, Google Maps, Google Workspace, Google Translate — as well as new products we are developing. We’re excited about the potential for AI to continue to make our products even more useful and transformational as we look ahead.

Read on for a preview and visit ai.google to see in full.

Why we focus on AI (and to what end)

It is an exciting time in the development of AI. Our approach to developing and harnessing the potential of AI is grounded in our founding mission — to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful — and it is shaped by our commitment to improve the lives of as many people as possible. It is our view that AI is now, and more than ever, critical to delivering on that mission and commitment.

We believe that AI is a foundational and transformational technology that will provide compelling and helpful benefits to people and society through its capacity to assist, complement, empower, and inspire people in almost every field of human endeavor. It has the potential to contribute to tackling some of society’s most pressing challenges and opportunities, from the everyday to the more creative and imaginative.

As an information and computer science company, we aim to and have been at the forefront of advancing the frontier of AI through our path-breaking and field-defining research to develop more capable and useful AI. From this research and development, we are bringing breakthrough innovations into the real world to assist people and benefit society everywhere through our infrastructure, tools, products, and services, as well as through enabling and working with others to benefit society. We are also pursuing innovations that will help to unlock scientific discoveries and to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges and opportunities. Many of our innovations are already assisting and benefiting people (in some cases billions of people), communities, businesses, and organizations, and society broadly — with more such innovations still to come.

At the same time, we understand that AI, as a still-emerging technology, poses various and evolving complexities and risks. Our development and use of AI must address these risks. That’s why we as a company consider it an imperative to pursue AI responsibly. We are committed to leading and setting the standard in developing and shipping useful and beneficial applications, applying ethical principles grounded in human values, and evolving our approaches as we learn from research, experience, users, and the wider community.

We also believe that getting AI right — which to us involves innovating and delivering widely accessible benefits to people and society, while mitigating its risks — must be a collective effort involving us and others, including researchers, developers, users (individuals, businesses, and other organizations), governments, regulators and citizens. It is critical that we collectively earn public trust if AI is to deliver on its potential for people and society. As a company, we embrace the opportunity to work with others to get AI right.

We are convinced that the AI-enabled innovations we are focused on developing and delivering boldly and responsibly are useful, compelling, and have the potential to assist and improve lives of people everywhere — this is what compels us. And we are excited about what lies ahead in 2023 and beyond as we get ready to share some new innovative experiences!

– James Manyika, Jeff Dean, Demis Hassabis, Marian Croak and Sundar Pichai