Use AI for everything — or get left behind (2025)
In recent months, pressure has ramped up inside Google for employees to use AI tools in their day-to-day work to make them more productive. As Google and other tech giants like Microsoft try to push the frontiers of AI for new products, they see ways it can boost their businesses — and that means getting employees on board.
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| Generated by Google's Gemini 2.5 |
In June, Google engineering vice president Megan Kacholia sent an email to software engineers telling them to use AI tools to improve their coding. The email also said that some engineer role profiles—a description of a specific job's tasks and duties—were being updated to include mentions of using AI to solve problems.
In a July all-hands meeting with the whole company, CEO Sundar Pichai sent a simple message to the troops: Employees need to use AI for Google to lead this race, according to two employees who heard the remarks. Pichai said rival companies would leverage AI, so Google needs to make sure it does the same to compete.
Google, which has been racing OpenAI and others with its Gemini AI models, is using internal learning programs to cajole staff into experimenting with vibe coding and using other AI tools to improve productivity.
Managers have also been pushing staff to prove they're AI-savvy, according to several current employees who asked to remain anonymous because they were not permitted to speak to the press.
Engineers should use only internal models for coding, the guidelines said. Employees who want to use third-party AI tools for tasks outside coding must get approval first.
Other tech companies have similar rules to deter employees from putting sensitive internal information into outside systems. At Amazon, employees have pushed for the company to adopt the AI coding assistant Cursor, which has required sign-off from leadership.
Googlers were also told that AI-generated code is still considered the employee's work and should, therefore, adhere to Google's standards.
The memo mentioned that employees should be "dogfooding" Google's AI software coding tools, meaning they should test new products internally before they're launched to the public, according to two people who saw the email.
A spokesperson pointed Business Insider to a recently published company blog outlining ways Googlers use AI.
"By using AI as a collaborative partner, we're able to spend time on the most innovative, strategic and fulfilling parts of our work," the blog reads.
Google wants its coders to go all in on AI
For coding in particular, Google says it's already seeing huge gains thanks to the aid of AI.
Pichai said earlier this year that Google was measuring productivity gains from AI among its engineers and estimated a 10% boost. During Alphabet's Q1 2025 earnings call, Pichai said that more than 30% of code written at Google was being generated by AI, up from the over-25% figure he cited the previous October.
Google also last month spent $2.4 billion to hire several key members of the AI coding startup Windsurf, including its CEO Varun Mohan. Google said at the time that it did the acquihire to advance its work in "agentic coding."
Some employees told Business Insider that their managers have asked them to demonstrate how they use AI day-to-day — and they expect it will be taken into consideration when reviews do come around.
"It seems like a no-brainer that you need to be using it to get ahead," one told Business Insider.
"It's still predominantly, 'Are you hitting your numbers?'" a sales employee said. "But if you use AI to develop new workflows that others can use effectively, then that is rewarded."
A Google spokesperson said that while the company actively encourages Googlers to use AI in their daily work, it is not evaluating staff on it as part of their performance reviews.
New guidelines for Google engineers
Kacholia's email to staff in June included a link to an updated set of guidelines on how engineers should use AI in their work. The guidelines, created by Google engineers, included best practices for how employees should and should not use AI for coding based on the capabilities of Google's internal models.
Google engineers are encouraged to use Cider, an internal development tool that includes a coding agent, several current employees said. Cider runs a variety of internal models, including "Gemini for Google" — formerly known as Goose — which was trained on Google's internal technical data, per internal documents reviewed by Business Insider. Employees were told during last month's all-hands meeting that more tools are on the way.
The use of AI in software engineering could create a skill gap between those who use AI effectively and those who do not, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth recently predicted.
That means leaders need to get as many employees on board as possible. In June, YouTube held a "vibe coding" week for its employees to promote how AI tools could be helpful for software engineers, according to an employee with direct knowledge. YouTube's vice president of engineering, Scott Silver, ran and promoted that event.
It's not just coding. Googlers in sales and legal divisions also told Business Insider that they have been asked by managers to incorporate AI into their workflows with tools like NotebookLM, a research program that uses AI to bring together information from different documents. Some employees are being trained to create Gems — custom versions of Google's Gemini AI — for their specific roles, one employee said.
Googlers react to these changes
The employees Business Insider spoke to didn't push back on the idea of using AI more in their work. They all said they felt that becoming AI-savvy was the way to get ahead at Google now, particularly as the company has made changes to better reward high performers.
Some Googlers poked fun at the recent changes to the role profiles on Google's internal message board, MemeGen.
"If AI actually improved productivity, it wouldn't need to be in the role profile," read one Googler-made meme seen by Business Insider.
Another read, "You know a technology works and is great when you're forced to praise it to maintain your livelihood."
Googlers who spoke to Business Insider said they see these changes as inevitable, as competitors also harness AI among their workforce.
"Some are really excited about it," one engineer said. "But some are grudgingly doing it because they don't want to be left behind."
Microsoft pushes staff to use internal AI tools more, and may consider this in reviews. 'Using AI is no longer optional.'
Microsoft is asking some managers to evaluate employees based on how much they use AI internally, and the software giant is considering adding a metric related to this in its review process, Business Insider has learned.
Julia Liuson, president of the Microsoft division responsible for developer tools such as AI coding service GitHub Copilot, recently sent an email instructing managers to evaluate employee performance based on their use of internal AI tools like this.
"AI is now a fundamental part of how we work," Liuson wrote. "Just like collaboration, data-driven thinking, and effective communication, using AI is no longer optional — it's core to every role and every level."
Liuson told managers that AI "should be part of your holistic reflections on an individual's performance and impact."
Microsoft's performance requirements vary from team to team, and some are considering including a more formal metric about the use of internal AI tools in performance reviews for its next fiscal year, according to a person familiar with the situation. This person asked not to be identified discussing private matters.
These changes are meant to address what Microsoft sees as lagging internal adoption of its Copilot AI services, according to another two people with knowledge of the plans. The company wants to increase usage broadly, but also wants the employees building these products have a better understanding of the tools.
In Liuson's organization, GitHub Copilot is facing increasing competition from AI coding services including Cursor. Microsoft lets employees use some external AI tools that meet certain security requirements. Staff are currently allowed to use coding assistant Replit, for example, one of the people said.
A recent note from Barclays cited data suggesting that Cursor recently surpassed GitHub Copilot in a key part of the developer market.
Competition among coding tools is even becoming a sticking point in Microsoft's renegotiation of its most important partnership with OpenAI. OpenAI is considering acquiring Cursor competitor Windsurf, but Microsoft's current deal with OpenAI would give it access to Windsurf's intellectual property and neither Windsurf nor OpenAI wants that, a person with knowledge of the talks said.
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