Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, was asked in an interview how close AI is to replacing him. He answered by narrowing the question to the parts of executive work where machines can help. His main example was decision-making, especially how to divide the company’s AI computing power among competing internal requests.
He called the CEO job “not that complicated.” What he described was more specific, a role filled with decisions, appeals and emotion. In that setting, AI becomes useful when it can bring a calmer starting point to a process that already has inputs, limits and trade-offs.
Dividing up computing power is a real operating decision. Teams care deeply about those calls, because access affects what they can build and how fast they can move. A CEO can end up handling the human pressure around the decision, even when the decision itself should rest on facts.
AI enters before the final call, where it can sort options and organise competing demands. It can also help separate what is being requested from how loudly it is being pushed. The better that preparation, the more useful the meeting becomes.
Pichai also said very few decisions carry major consequences, while many are ordinary choices that keep a company moving. The work is knowing which kind a decision is: some deserve slow deliberation, and many need enough confidence to move forward. AI fits the repeatable part, where speed and consistency set the organisation’s pace.
Spreadsheets offer a precedent. When they entered companies, finance teams gained a better starting point for analysis but kept doing financial work. Calculations that once took longer became part of the normal routine, and business judgement moved onto firmer ground. Pichai sees AI agents in a similar way, as tools that raise the starting point for practical work. In his everyday example, an agent makes planning a trip easier by handling opening times, tickets and logistics. The person still decides what kind of trip is worth taking.
Inside companies, the same logic points first to unglamorous work, such as planning and cutting the noise around weekly decisions. The job itself stays with a person, because authority, trust and accountability stay with the person in charge.
