Most people now acknowledge that AI is helping programmers radically improve their output, but this might not necessarily mean the loss of engineering jobs.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has provided a clear, data-backed perspective that challenges the narrative of AI-driven job obsolescence. On the Lex Fridman podcast, he revealed that while AI has demonstrably boosted the productivity of Google’s engineering teams, the company’s strategic response is not to downsize. On the contrary, Google is actively planning to hire even more engineers, signaling a future where AI acts as a powerful catalyst for growth and creativity rather than simply a tool for workforce reduction.
Pichai explained how Google is meticulously tracking the effects of AI on its development cycles, moving beyond vanity metrics to find the true measure of its impact. “Looking at Google, we’ve given various stats; for instance, that 30% of our code now uses AI-generated suggestions,” he began. “But the most important metric, which we carefully and rigorously try to measure, is how much our engineering velocity has increased as a result of AI.”
The result of this rigorous analysis is a significant gain in company-wide efficiency. “Our estimate for that number is now at 10%,” Pichai stated. “Across the company, we have accomplished a 10% engineering velocity increase using AI.”
Despite this double-digit productivity boost, Pichai was quick to dispel the notion that this would logically lead to a smaller engineering workforce. “But we plan to hire more engineers next year,” he confirmed. The reasoning behind this seemingly counterintuitive decision is straightforward: “The opportunity space of what we can do is expanding too.”
He elaborated on how this technological shift is poised to improve the quality of work for developers, making the field more creative and appealing. “For many engineers, it frees up more of the mundane aspects of the job,” Pichai explained. “In engineering and coding, there are aspects which are so much fun—you’re designing, you’re architecting, you’re solving a problem. There’s also a lot of grunt work, but AI hopefully takes a lot of that away. It makes it even more fun to code and frees you up more time to create, problem-solve, and brainstorm with your fellow colleagues.”
Ultimately, he sees AI not as a replacement for human talent but as a democratizing force that will expand the field of engineering itself. “That’s the opportunity there,” Pichai concluded. “It’ll put the creative power in more people’s hands, which means people will create more. That means there’ll be more engineers doing more things.”
Pichai’s comments provide a crucial insight into the strategy of one of the world’s most influential technology companies. The “10% velocity increase” is a concrete metric that grounds the conversation about AI in practical business outcomes. It demonstrates that integrated AI tools, such as Google’s own Gemini, are delivering measurable gains at an immense scale. The key takeaway from Google’s strategy is that these efficiency gains are being reinvested directly into ambition. Rather than building the same products with fewer people, the goal is to build bigger, more innovative products with a larger, more creative, and more effective team.
This trend is not unfolding in isolation. Across the tech industry, AI coding assistants like Cursor and Windsurf have seen explosive adoption. Yet, like Google, major technology firms might continue to seek out engineering talent that can master and leverage these new AI tools. The nature of the role is evolving, with less emphasis on rote memorization of syntax and more on high-level system design, creative problem-solving, and the crucial skill of collaborating effectively with an AI partner. Pichai’s vision suggests the emergence of a virtuous cycle: AI boosts productivity, which expands the scope of what is possible, which in turn increases the demand for skilled engineers who can operate in this new, augmented paradigm. The future of engineering, at least per Google’s CEO, is not about being replaced by a machine, but being amplified by one.