Google employees have created AI that secures gold medals at math competitions, but when it comes to their routine job tasks, they may need to improve.

Following a statement by Google CEO Sundar Pichai during a July all-hands meeting that employees must incorporate AI into their daily tasks for the company to progress, the organization is reportedly intensifying the expectation for employees to demonstrate their productivity. Several current employees informed Business Insider that their managers have been advocating an AI-first strategy by requiring workers to showcase their utilization of the technology.

The employees further predicted that these demonstrations would likely be factored into performance reviews, the outlet noted.

“It’s still predominantly, ‘Are you hitting your sales numbers?” a sales employee told BI regarding the performance reviews. “But if you use AI to develop new workflows that others can use effectively, then that is rewarded.”

Nonetheless, a Google spokesperson disputed the report and informed BI that the company was not taking AI use into account for performance review evaluations, though it supports employees’ utilization of the technology.

^{Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images}

Heightening the emphasis on AI at Google, Engineering Vice President Megan Kacholia sent an email to software engineers in June urging them to harness AI for advancing their coding skills. Google has encouraged staff to experiment with vibe coding, or using AI to generate code through prompts.

This has resulted in more AI-generated code. Pichai noted in April that company engineers were employing AI to produce “well over 30%” of all new code at Google, an increase from 25% in October.

“It seems like a no-brainer that you need to be using it [AI] to get ahead,” a Microsoft employee told BI.

Google has also spent billions in recent months to acquire new AI talent. Last month, the company inked a $2.4 billion deal to hire key members of AI coding startup Windsurf, including CEO Varun Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen. Under the agreement, Google also obtained a nonexclusive license to Windsurf’s AI coding technology.

AI is quickly becoming an integral part of the workforce at other tech companies, too. At Salesforce, AI is handling 30% to 50% of work, like software engineering and customer service, while 20% to 30% of new code at rival Microsoft is generated by AI.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is the fourth-biggest company in the world, with a market value of $2.4 trillion at the time of writing.

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