Pichai sees protocols as a more scalable path for agents

Transcript

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

1. 38:35

   it in a pretty deep way. Yeah. A thing I've been dying to ask you, especially with your experience, you know, running Chrome before, like the moment we're in, all these agents are using browsers like humans to complete tests. I mean, with Muse, you can literally see, right? And, you know, It feels when I look at it, I get why it's happening. You want to get the task done and that's the way to do it. But it feels like trying to fit a triangle into a square. It doesn't feel quite right. And to me, it's making me go, does the web need to fundamentally change for these agents? And I know there's protocols, you guys have worked on them, there's others. But I feel like Google is uniquely positioned to do something here bigger. And I'm curious if you've been thinking about that.

2. 39:14

   No, you know, deeply, you are right. Look, it's a complex moment because, you know, when we say agents working at scale, that means many, many different parts of the economy interoperating with each other in some way, in a way that has to make sense for all the players involved, right? And I think the technology frontier will be ahead of the ecosystem, how it comes to work together in this case. I definitely think a big part of this is why there's been a lot of momentum behind MCP or agent protocols or payment protocols like what we did with UCP along with a set of companies.

3. 39:54

   And there's going to be a chaotic evolution there, hopefully working towards. more interoperable standards, right? And I think that's a very elegant way to do it. Browser use and computer use is a very elegant way to work too because that's what you as a user would do and allows you to efficiently build controls for the users to be in the loop as well. So I think you have both ways and they're going to develop.

4. 40:25

   But there are moments where anytime I think if you solve it with better protocols, you know, I think it's a far more scalable approach and it'll work anywhere and instantly. So I think, but that will take longer time. Yeah. How do you think about protecting the interface in the way that you need to in this agent world, right? There's an argument to be made. There's a new kind of agentic Google search that could be invented now. Agents don't need, you know, Amazon has blocked Muse, for example, you have a very large ads business that requires engagement. So what do agents do to those kinds of interfaces? How do you protect or not from that? The right answer longer term is you put users first and say, what would users want? And you want to try your best to be aligned in that direction, work towards that direction, right? And I think that's what will drive these

5. 41:21

   experiences but ultimately it has to work for all the businesses who are providing value too so at any given point you're going to reach equilibrium and that equilibrium will shift there'll be new players who view each of these moments as disruptive ways to do things differently like when the internet came you know you would sit and think shouldn't the way real estate works how people buy and sell houses overnight transform right but you know it's kind of played out not quite what people thought it would happen that way, right? And I would argue even today, most of it happens the way it used to happen, like, you know, 20 years ago.

6. 41:59

   So there are real constraints in the real world. I think AI agents and AI are even more, they will be even more disruptive, but, you know, there'll be microequilibriums which will emerge. For me, from our standpoint, I think you embrace the innovation. You kind of put yourself in the shoes of users and you try to innovate in that direction. That's how I would approach our product development. So I think that's what users would demand.

7. 42:28

   I've talked to Liz and some of your other colleagues over the last year or so about this idea of when do Google search AI overviews and Gemini fully merge, if ever? Because right now you've got these two large-scaled AI products, Gemini, a billion users, Search, billions of users, but different, but overlapping in some cases, AI experiences. Do you ever see them fully combining? Okay. Here's an example, right? When we ship personal intelligence, they work. I mean, you can turn on personal intelligence both in Gemini and in Search, and it has your context and so kind of works in a unified way.

8. 43:07

   I expect our agents to provide that unifying experience across these products. In fact, that agent declare, rather than try to converge or think about different products and how they come together, I think the agent declare naturally ends up doing that, right, so because your agents, they're running in the cloud, they're running 24-7, they have your context, and so they can pick up things where you left off, right?

9. 43:36

   So you can start a task in some place, you go to the other place, your agent has that context for you. So I think the agent declare offers us a chance to bring a unified product experience better than ever before. So that's how I think about it.