Sundar Pichai says “more than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers”

Google is building a bunch of AI products, and it's using AI quite a bit as part of building those products, too. “More than a quarter of all new code …

The Verge 2024-10-30 Jay Peters

Context & Ripple Effects

This marks an early internal benchmark for Google’s push to put generative AI into core products and operations, following its scramble to embed generative AI across its services. It matters because the company is applying the technology not only to user-facing products but also to the engineering work required to ship them.

The later report that AI-generated code reached 75% of Google’s new code shows this was the beginning of a measurable adoption trajectory, with human review remaining the stated control point.

First-order effects

Google engineers shift more of their time from drafting code to reviewing, validating, and accepting AI-produced changes.
Google gains a live internal proving ground for the coding AI capabilities it is building and deploying.

Second-order effects

The need for reliable review raises the value of testing, code-quality controls, and engineering workflows that can identify errors in machine-generated changes.
Rival software organizations face pressure to adopt coding assistants in their own development pipelines or explain slower delivery if Google’s internal use translates into faster product iteration.

Third-order effects

If human-reviewed AI code becomes routine, software engineering work is likely to be reorganized around specification, verification, and system-level judgment rather than manual implementation alone.
The enduring constraint will be governance: wider AI use in production code makes accountable review and acceptance processes central to preserving software reliability.

The trend: This is one data point in the industrialization of generative AI, as large technology companies turn models into workflow-native production tools.

Discussion

@marypcbuk.bsky.social Scary Mary Branscombe on bluesky
I keep see people asking why Google search shows you those damn stupid answers obviously taken from satirical sites and well, is this the answer? [embedded post]
@moonalice Roger McNamee on x
I think @bcmerchant is right about this. Big Tech is like a pack of lemmings running off a cliff. The problem is that they are trying to push our democracy off the cliff in front of them.
r/artificial r on reddit
More than a quarter of new code at Google is generated by AI
r/ChatGPT r on reddit
More than a quarter of new code at Google is generated by AI
r/OpenAI r on reddit
Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI
r/technology r on reddit
Over a quarter of new code at Google is generated by AI
r/technews r on reddit
Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI
@daveleebbg Dave Lee on threads
Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler saying users appreciate the addition of advertising within AI Overviews because it means “they can quickly connect with relevant businesses” I'm always hearing people say that
@waymo @waymo on x
Waymo One is now providing over 150,000 paid trips and driving over 1 million fully autonomous miles every week. The future is here, it's growing, and it's taking riders safely to their destinations every day. [video]
@sundarpichai Sundar Pichai on x
6/ Last but not least: @Waymo's doing really well - 1M fully autonomous miles and 150K paid rides / week, plus partnerships with Uber + Hyundai, 6th-gen Waymo Driver, growing commercial opportunity. Here's a photo after a recent concert in SF - Waymo after Waymo picking people […
@divestech Dan Ives on x
Alphabet robust numbers and outlook. Cloud strength and AI driven enterprise deals a highlight. Advertising rebound continues. Bullish for Big Tech as Capex robust into 2025. Big week ahead 🔥🏆🍿🐂
@sundarpichai Sundar Pichai on x
2/ Gemini API calls, token volume, consumer usage, business adoption - all growing dramatically. And all 7 of our products and platforms with 2B+ monthly users use Gemini models, including the newest 2B-user product, Google Maps. [image]
@sundarpichai Sundar Pichai on x
@YouTube 5/ We continue to invest in state-of-the-art infrastructure to support our AI efforts, including important work inside our data centers to drive efficiencies, while making significant hardware and model improvements. [image]
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
Question came up if $AAPL's Safari default search deal gets voided by DOJ. Sundar basically said they're the leader and people will ultimately seek out $GOG. My take - the best thing for Google is to step away from Apple and save around $15B a year, take the near term hit on se…
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
Hearing noticeably more about Waymo on this call vs the previous 10 earnings call. It's still too small and will likely be too small in the next five years for most Google investors to care. Could add 5-10% to the companies overall value.
@danielbzhao Daniel Zhao on x
Alphabet's employee count has been essentially unchanged since Q2 2023 $GOOG [image]
@patrickmoorhead Patrick Moorhead on x
Every company should outline earnings on X like Sundar does. Simple, straightforward, and makes you want to click to see the details. Bravo Google. Amazing so many tech companies live in the dark ages of IR.
@patrickmoorhead Patrick Moorhead on x
$GOOGL beats Q3 on nearly every expectation metric across every business line. Google Cloud beats big on revenue and profit. Nearing $50B annual revenue run rate. More on the pod Friday.
@sundarpichai Sundar Pichai on x
3/ Recent AI advancements, including AI Overviews, Circle to Search, and new Lens features, are expanding what people can search for and how they search for it. This leads to people coming to Search more often, driving additional search queries. [image]
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
Waymo is dong 150k rides a week. This is up from the “more than 100k” rides per week that the Waymo CEO (Tekedra Mawakana) reported to the WSJ last week.
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
Philipp Schindler, Chief Business Officer, says people seeing adds directly in the generative results and added that AI “supercharges” search. I think the “supercharge” comment is related to the user experience today and lays the ground work that AI will be positive for Google
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
** Key Comment from Call ** Sundar say users are using Google more because of AI Overviews. He added this increases Search revenue. AI Overviews will expanded to over a billion people in October. In the June quarter I estimate it was available to US only, or about 275m people.…
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
Google Cloud: Growth accelerated to 35% y/y vs. 29% in June-24. Why this is important: This is a positive read on the broader AI trade given this is evidence that hyperscalers cloud businesses are growing faster than expected and that growth is driven by compute for AI.
@sundarpichai Sundar Pichai on x
** Key Comment from Call ** Sundar say users are using Google more because of AI Overviews. He added this increases Search revenue. AI Overviews will expanded to over a billion people in October. In the June quarter I estimate it was available to US only, or about 275m people.…

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