# AI could let far more people create software and media

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/ai-could-let-far-more-people-create-software-and-media/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Sundar Pichai](https://realalpha.app/builders/sundar-pichai/) · Sundar Pichai is CEO of Google and Alphabet. · Helped build Google Toolbar and Chrome, then led Google from 2015 and Alphabet from 2019.
- Host: [Nilay Patel](https://realalpha.app/people/nilay-patel/) · Editor-in-chief, The Verge · Helped start The Verge in 2011 and has hosted Decoder since 2020.
- Show: Decoder
- Episode: [Google CEO Sundar Pichai on the future of search, AI agents, and selling Chrome](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/), May 27, 2025
- Moment: 4:10 to 7:58 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/ai-could-let-far-more-people-create-software-and-media/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=250

## Quote

> “The process of creating, developing, et cetera, is going to be **accessible to a much wider swath** of humanity than ever before.”
> — [Sundar Pichai](https://realalpha.app/builders/sundar-pichai/) at [5:54](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=354) · Decoder

## Takeaways

1. AI could make building applications accessible to more people.
2. Coding and video generation are early examples.
3. Polished coding still requires programming skill.

## About this segment

Sundar Pichai compares AI with earlier platform shifts, then says creation tools will let far more people build applications. He sees coding and video generation as early examples, though polished coding still takes programming skill.

From “Google CEO Sundar Pichai on the future of search, AI agents, and selling Chrome”, May 27, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[4:23](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=263) The second phase, what is it to you? Just imagine when the internet came, blogging became a thing. You know, pre-internet, very few people had a means by which they could put out their thoughts out to the world, right? You know, with the internet came a new medium, it allowed people to create and express themselves in a new way. With mobile came cameras and you could shoot and like, you know, you could create videos, you know, look at what's happened with YouTube.

[4:52](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=292) For me, the similar part of this is, you know, we're all talking about things like vibe coding. Yesterday you saw VO3, right? So we are now in that phase. I think people are going to be able to create AI applications, you can call it. But, you know, wipe coding, there are many names to it, but that power is yet to be unleashed. We're barely scratching the surface, right? And these models are now, they aren't quite there.

[5:19](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=319) You can kind of do one-shot coding, but you really need to know, be a programmer to kind of go iterate and create something with polish, right? But that frontier is evolving pretty rapidly. So I think you're going to see a new wave of things, just like mobile did, just the internet did. You know, I came to Google at the time when there was Ajax was the revolution. The fact that the web became dynamic, you know, you had things like Google Maps, Flickr, Gmail, all that suddenly came into existence, right?

[5:46](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=346) And but I think AI is going to turbocharge in a way we haven't seen before. It feels to me like what you're describing is we're in the phase where the products are developed, right? The capabilities were the first phase, and now we're going to make some actual products. And more people can build products than ever before. That's the multiplicative part I'm talking about. Not just this platform helps you create more products.

[6:07](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=367) The process of creating, developing, et cetera, is going to be accessible to a much wider swath of humanity than ever before. I'm wondering, when you look at the landscape of products that exist now, most people experience AI in Gemini or ChatGPT as a chatbot, the general purpose interface to a bunch of knowledge that will talk to you. What products do you see that will have the same kind of impact as the web to products you were talking about?

[6:31](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=391) besides the general purpose chatbot? Obviously, you've seen a wave with coding IDEs, right? Like, you know, that entire landscape is, I can't even keep track of, you know, how many new companies have come into and people are using a lot of it, right? And yesterday we showed a bunch of partners with whom we are working. So that's an area where, because coding is where maybe AI is making the most progress, you're seeing the application layer, at least in terms of code editors, really come into vogue.

[7:03](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=423) We've had success with NotebookLM, right? We're launching products like Flow yesterday, right? Flow is a new product, which allows you to create and imagine. So those are all applications we are doing. I think others are beginning to do, you know, people are working on like legal assistance and there are all kinds of startups. I was recently in a doctor's office and they do have AI kind of look at it, I mean, transcribe the whole thing, put it all in reports and so on.

[7:27](https://realalpha.app/v/1IxG7ywSNXk/?t=447) That's an enterprise application layer. kind of completely works different than when I went to that visit two years ago. So all that change is happening across the board, but I think we are just in the early stages. So, you know, you will see it play out over the next three to five years in a big way. Did you ask your doctor what model their transcription software is running? No, I didn't. No, I didn't.