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Head of Gemini: You're Using 5% of What Gemini Can Actually Do | Josh Woodward

📌 Increase your visibility in AI search with HubSpot AEO — see how your brand shows up in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. FREE for 28 days, then $50/month: https://clickhubspot.com/a400ee Josh Woodward, the VP behind Google Labs, the Gemini app, and AI Studio, gave me the clearest picture yet of where AI is actually heading at Google. 0:00 — Intro 1:01 — Why This Google I/O Is Different From Every Other One 2:21 — Feature That Was Built Two Weekends Before I/O 3:22 — Why Switch to Gemini When You Already Use Another AI 6:53 — The Shift to Voice-First Is Already Happening 8:02 — From Doing to Directing: Everyone Becomes a Manager 12:10 — Is Google Actually Losing the AI Race? 15:18 — Gemini's Personality 16:27 — How Josh Builds Personal Context Into AI 19:58 — Why Everyone Needs to Organize Their Personal Context Now 20:55 — What AGI Actually Means 22:35 — Why Human Taste Becomes More Valuable, Not Less 23:42 — Advice for Someone Starting Their Career Right Now 24:29 — How Google Labs Ships Products in Two Weekends 26:13 — The Metric Josh Uses Instead of Retention Dashboards 29:39 — The Next Shift Nobody Has Internalized Yet 31:12 — What His Five-Year-Old's Future Looks Like *Links*: 📩 Follow my Newsletter: https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=futureproof-sub&utm_content=Josh Woodward 🔗 My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ 📌 My Companies & Products: https://Marinamogilko.co #googleio #podcast #gemini #geminispark

Josh WoodwardguestMarina Mogilkohost
May 21, 202633mWatch on YouTube ↗

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  1. 0:00 – 1:01

    Intro

    1. JW

      The amount you're gonna be able to get done is unbelievable. What used to take a few seconds is just gonna be like boom, boom, boom, boom.

    2. MM

      This is Josh Woodward, Head of Gemini. Google just launched Gemini Spark, an AI agent that works for you 24/7 in the background.

    3. JW

      That was a project we started called Personal Intelligence. If you're a Gmail user and use Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, all that stuff just works. Helping us free up time in our calendar so we can do things we wanna do, either together with our family, hobbies and whatnot.

    4. MM

      So if agents do a lot of stuff instead of us, is this officially a new era of work coming? Let's get into it. Thanks to HubSpot for sponsoring this video. Josh.

    5. JW

      Hi.

    6. MM

      Welcome to Silicon Valley Girl.

    7. JW

      Thank you.

    8. MM

      I'm so excited to finally be chatting with you. Um-

    9. JW

      I know, yeah.

    10. MM

      Congrats on all the success. You've been with Google for almost 20 years?

    11. JW

      Well, yeah, 16 and a half, I think.

    12. MM

      16.

    13. JW

      Yeah, I started as an intern.

    14. MM

      Crazy.

    15. JW

      Uh-

    16. MM

      Okay, so you've seen a lot of Google I/Os.

    17. JW

      Mm, mm.

    18. MM

      Can you rank this one-

    19. JW

      Mm

    20. MM

      ... in terms of

  2. 1:01 – 2:21

    Why This Google I/O Is Different From Every Other One

    1. MM

      significance?

    2. JW

      Yeah. I think this is a big one, um, for a couple of reasons. One, it's the first time we're really starting to shift more into this agentic era.

    3. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    4. JW

      And I think that'll be a big shift for a lot of our products. You saw some of it yesterday.

    5. MM

      Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

    6. JW

      But there's a lot more cooking we have in Google Labs coming, too. So that's one. I think the other, this Gemini Omni model is another one. It's a very big shift in how you start to think about any kind of input in and the output that comes out of it.

    7. MM

      Yeah.

    8. JW

      So should be fun. And then at the end it was a bit, you know, Go- Google I/O is such a flood of news, but, um, towards the end, Dimis actually mentioned a couple of our science products that we're working on.

    9. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    10. JW

      And I'm very excited about that and where that's gonna go. Um-

    11. MM

      What was your most exciting update yesterday?

    12. JW

      Ooh. Well, I can't wait for people to play with Gemini Spark.

    13. MM

      Uh-huh.

    14. JW

      I think it's gonna be fun.

    15. MM

      It's rolling out this week to testers and next week to Pro?

    16. JW

      To... Yeah, to the Google AI Ultra members-

    17. MM

      Ultra

    18. JW

      ... in the US, and then we're gonna scale it up from there. Yeah.

    19. MM

      You know what was my favorite update?

    20. JW

      What?

    21. MM

      When you were demoing this voice feature, like you were talking to your computer-

    22. JW

      Yeah

    23. MM

      ... but instead of just transcribing, it actually went to your Google Drive, went to your Gmail-

    24. JW

      Yeah

    25. MM

      ... found all the necessary information, pulled it together and created this beautiful email with, like, a table inside-

    26. JW

      Yeah

    27. MM

      ... and a person.

    28. JW

      Yeah, yeah.

    29. MM

      I'm like, "This is nice. This is the next step of voice."

    30. JW

      Yeah.

  3. 2:21 – 3:22

    Feature That Was Built Two Weekends Before I/O

    1. MM

      rolling out soon?

    2. JW

      Yeah, that's soon.

    3. MM

      Because I'm excited to try that.

    4. JW

      That'll be in the coming weeks. Exactly. We're playing with it right now. It's so fun. Um, and I think what's amazing to me, the first time, I remember it was two weekends ago, we were hacking on this on the team, and they were like, "Do you think we could get this in Google I/O?" It's like, it's a little tight to get something in. We snuck it in. Um-

    5. MM

      So this feature is two weeks old?

    6. JW

      Yeah, this feature was two weekends ago. And it's amazing because you select all your files. Either they could be in Drive or on your desktop, and then you just talk to it.

    7. MM

      Yeah.

    8. JW

      And it can go through and understand what's in the PDF, what's in the image, and then create it all.

    9. MM

      It's-

    10. JW

      And then it also enhances the text. Like, I intentionally made a mistake on stage-

    11. MM

      Yeah

    12. JW

      ... to, like, change the date.

    13. MM

      And it understands.

    14. JW

      And it, it understands.

    15. MM

      Yeah.

    16. JW

      Exactly.

    17. MM

      Yeah. So this thing is happening now, uh, that I wanted to touch upon. So a lot of people are using different tools, right?

    18. JW

      Yeah.

    19. MM

      And we've seen something similar in, like, I don't know, Codex, Claude Code.

    20. JW

      Yeah, yeah.

    21. MM

      Uh, with these features rolling out, what would you tell to people who are thinking if they need to switch? Like, why

  4. 3:22 – 6:53

    Why Switch to Gemini When You Already Use Another AI

    1. MM

      would they switch to Gemini?

    2. JW

      Yeah, yeah. Well, I think with Gemini you're gonna get a few things. And if you're thinking about Gemini Spark in particular, first, it is deeply integrated in the Google environment and ecosystem.

    3. MM

      You don't even need connectors.

    4. JW

      That's right.

    5. MM

      I like- I've been saying this-

    6. JW

      That's right

    7. MM

      ... for so many years.

    8. JW

      That's right.

    9. MM

      Like, please.

    10. JW

      That's right.

    11. MM

      Start rolling this out.

    12. JW

      Yeah. So I think, you know, whether... If you're a Gmail user and use Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, all that stuff just works.

    13. MM

      Yeah.

    14. JW

      And it's very good. Second thing, we actually have virtual machines that we can spin up in the background on Google Cloud. So I think where all this is going is you won't just have one or two tasks. You may have hundreds of tasks. And you can imagine we can do that in parallel.

    15. MM

      Yeah.

    16. JW

      And just, um, the amount you're gonna be able to get done is unbelievable. So that's two right off the bat.

    17. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    18. JW

      The third, I would say, is we're really trying to push the limits on the types of things that Spark's gonna be able to create for you. So what I showed on stage was a Google Doc or a Google Slide deck for our neighborhood block party.

    19. MM

      Yeah.

    20. JW

      But imagine this has got Man of Banana. It can make images. It's got Omni. It can make videos. It's got Lyria. It can make songs. And that's the kind of stuff that no one else has, that sort of generative media suite. And so I think the ability of this thing over time is just gonna be way more versatile. But we're starting out. It's very early. It's a beta. There'll be a lot of things. When we add MCP connections in a few weeks. We'll add agentic payments with Google Pay-

    21. MM

      Are you gonna-

    22. JW

      ... and Wallet

    23. MM

      ... YouTube analytics by any chance?

    24. JW

      Oh, that's-

    25. MM

      That's something, um-

    26. JW

      Good feature request maybe. [laughs]

    27. MM

      Because the thing is, as a YouTuber-

    28. JW

      Yeah

    29. MM

      ... I can't really use Gemini to talk to my analytics 'cause it's not connected.

    30. JW

      Yeah.

  5. 6:53 – 8:02

    The Shift to Voice-First Is Already Happening

    1. JW

      and all that stuff.

    2. MM

      Yeah. And you also released Docs Live yesterday.

    3. JW

      Yeah.

    4. MM

      When you can talk to your Google Doc.

    5. JW

      Yeah.

    6. MM

      And you know what? It got me thinking. Are we slowly moving to voice first apps?

    7. JW

      Mm, mm.

    8. MM

      Do you notice that internally? 'Cause I, I started talking to my computer all the time.

    9. JW

      Yeah.

    10. MM

      Now you're releasing this feature which, which not only allows you to transcribe what you're saying, but, like, have some smart thinking behind-

    11. JW

      Yeah

    12. MM

      ... the scenes.

    13. JW

      Yeah, yeah.

    14. MM

      Do you think the shift is happening now when we're using more voice?

    15. JW

      I think so. We see it in our Gemini usage stats as well. There's cer-

    16. MM

      Oh, do you have any numbers?

    17. JW

      Well, not to share here-

    18. MM

      Okay. [laughs]

    19. JW

      ... but I will say that, like, there are certain countries now where it's tipped, and voice has become just a dominant way-

    20. MM

      Yeah

    21. JW

      ... a lot of people are interacting.

    22. MM

      It's natural, right?

    23. JW

      It's natural.

    24. MM

      It's faster.

    25. JW

      It's faster. It's also, now we're at a point where you can kinda ramble and the model can clean it up for you.

    26. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    27. JW

      We've also now got it where the model's hooked in that can do all the tool calling. It can generate the images. So it's... And then the stuff I showed yesterday with the dialects is really fun.

    28. MM

      Oh, yeah. Yeah.

    29. JW

      So you can have it sort of talk in any number of different ways.

    30. MM

      Yeah.

  6. 8:02 – 12:10

    From Doing to Directing: Everyone Becomes a Manager

    1. JW

      out.

    2. MM

      Talk to me about the shift that's happening. So what I'm noticing as a user-

    3. JW

      Mm

    4. MM

      ... is that a lot of companies were optimizing for software engineering.

    5. JW

      Yeah.

    6. MM

      Like, let's use AI to speed up our software engineers. I'm seeing this huge shift to knowledge workers. Like, let's-

    7. JW

      Yeah

    8. MM

      ... now help knowledge workers to experience-

    9. JW

      Yeah

    10. MM

      ... the same magic-

    11. JW

      Yeah

    12. MM

      ... that it's, AI has done to software engineering. Is that the priority at Google right now?

    13. JW

      Yeah, there's big focus on it.

    14. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    15. JW

      And I think what's interesting is kind of taking the lessons we've learned over the last few months and quarters with coding and applying some of that to knowledge work. One of the early projects I worked on on all this, which is still going a lot, is NotebookLM.

    16. MM

      Oh, yeah, my favorite.

    17. JW

      But, oh, sh- you did, you did, yeah. [laughs]

    18. MM

      Love, I love it. Love it, love it. Whenever I'm prepping for, like, a scientific podcast, I go to-

    19. JW

      Yeah

    20. MM

      ... NotebookLM, upload all the articles they send me, and, like, listen to a podcast-

    21. JW

      Yeah

    22. MM

      ... about this phenomenon-

    23. JW

      Yeah

    24. MM

      ... that way.

    25. JW

      And I think that was one of the first ones we realized if you can make it real easy for people to assemble all that context, like all those papers in your case-

    26. MM

      Yeah

    27. JW

      ... and then either hit a button, it's a podcast, hit a button, it's a slide deck, it's a mind map, whatever you want. That was kind of our first, like, glimpse into where this is all going. And I think, like, where Notebook's gonna go, and even you'll see it in Gemini and other stuff, is, like, that ability to just describe or talk about what you want.

    28. MM

      Yeah.

    29. JW

      It's like, "I need to understand this. Go grab all these things. Make this, this, and this," and it's just gonna happen.

    30. MM

      Mm-hmm.

  7. 12:10 – 15:18

    Is Google Actually Losing the AI Race?

    1. MM

      changing now?

    2. JW

      Yeah. Well, I mean, it's very dynamic. [laughs] It's very fast-moving.

    3. MM

      It is.

    4. JW

      As you know, you have people on your show, too. I think, first off, it's fun. It-- I think competition, a lot of us on the team, we like that.

    5. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    6. JW

      Because you get this-- It sharpens you.

    7. MM

      Yeah.

    8. JW

      You know what I mean?

    9. MM

      Yeah.

    10. JW

      So that's one I would say. Um, the other thing I would say, though, is that there's a lot of things Google has, and in some cases has had for years. And what's fun for someone like me who's been around here a while is it's like, how do you kind of put these together in new and interesting ways? And so, you know, we talked earlier about you don't have to use connectors. That was a project we started called Personal Intelligence.

    11. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JW

      And it started from this idea: What if you could just tap one button and all your stuff could be connected?

    13. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    14. JW

      And that wouldn't mean that everybody wants to do it. We made it opt-in, so it's like you can choose. But for a lot of people, they're like, "Yes, I want that." [laughs]

    15. MM

      Yeah.

    16. JW

      And so I feel like it's really fun 'cause we're in this stage where we're getting to reimagine not only kind of existing products, but combine them in new ways to make new products.

    17. MM

      Yeah.

    18. JW

      And the-- that's just super fun. We get to do. Yeah.

    19. MM

      And also, like, fun, fun fact, my dad started using AI, like, a few months ago when-

    20. JW

      Mm

    21. MM

      ... he came here. He was visiting.

    22. JW

      Yeah.

    23. MM

      And he, he does, like-- He teaches MBA.

    24. JW

      Yeah.

    25. MM

      So he needed to do some, like, table on weights of different, like ex-experts, et cetera.

    26. JW

      Yeah.

    27. MM

      So asked ChatGPT, and it was like, okay. We asked Claude. He needed some follow-up questions, but he was happy with the result.

    28. JW

      Mm.

    29. MM

      We asked Gemini. First prompt in, he was so happy.

    30. JW

      Oh, nice. Great.

  8. 15:18 – 16:27

    Gemini's Personality

    1. JW

      use it for this."

    2. MM

      Yeah.

    3. JW

      And-

    4. MM

      "I use for this. I use for that. Maybe I should-"

    5. JW

      That's right.

    6. MM

      "... completely switch."

    7. JW

      That's right.

    8. MM

      Well, do you think Gemini's personality is important? 'Cause y-

    9. JW

      Oh, yeah

    10. MM

      ... we know AIs have their different personality.

    11. JW

      Yeah.

    12. MM

      How would you describe Gemini's personality?

    13. JW

      Oh, that's a great question. I mean, hopefully, it's helpful.

    14. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    15. JW

      Hopefully, it's something that you can trust that, like, comes across. We see this in the user research. People think it's, it's factual, it's accurate-

    16. MM

      Yeah

    17. JW

      ... it's precise.

    18. MM

      Not, not too agreeable. [laughs]

    19. JW

      Yeah, that's right. Um, we also hope that it's concise.

    20. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    21. JW

      It doesn't ramble on and on. It gets to the point. Um, we also want it to be kinda warm, sort of friendly, but not too friendly. Do you know what I mean?

    22. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    23. JW

      And I think one of the things we've also been exploring is ways we can let people steer the personality. There's maybe something that comes out of the box by default, but then some people do want it. In certain cases, we'll see this, where they'll be like, "Be really harsh on my ideas."

    24. MM

      Yeah.

    25. JW

      Like, "Poke holes in everything."

    26. MM

      Yeah, yeah.

    27. JW

      And so we want the model to have some degree of steerability too. But I do think, yeah, for us, we don't think of it, though, as, you know, a friend or something you're trying to fall in love with or anything like that. It's, it's a tool.

    28. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    29. JW

      And it's something that, again, at the end of the day, hopefully, it's something that's useful and helpful.

    30. MM

      Yeah.

  9. 16:27 – 19:58

    How Josh Builds Personal Context Into AI

    1. JW

      Um...

    2. MM

      Uh, uh, do you have any tips for someone who's just starting using Gemini? And you mentioned some people ask it to disagree with everything. They're like-

    3. JW

      Yeah

    4. MM

      ... is there anything that you have personally? 'Cause for example, I have this MD file called Personal Constitution-

    5. JW

      Yes

    6. MM

      ... that talks about all my principles. So I would-

    7. JW

      Yeah

    8. MM

      ... upload it to every AI that I'm using, so it learns my principles-

    9. JW

      Yeah, yeah

    10. MM

      ... or my tone of voice or, like, a personal dossier 'cause I use AI to write a lot of text.

    11. JW

      Yeah, yeah.

    12. MM

      So I want it to come up with facts. Do you have, like, your own personal productivity setup that you would recommend to everyone?

    13. JW

      Oh, that's interesting. Um, yours sounds good, by the way. [laughs]

    14. MM

      Yeah. Oh, I love it 'cause then AI really becomes your strategic partner-

    15. JW

      Exactly

    16. MM

      ... versus just an answering machine.

    17. JW

      That would-- Okay, that's what I was gonna say. The biggest shift I feel like years ago I made was instead of just going to it one-off, actually trying to build that context. Like, you use MD files-

    18. MM

      Yeah

    19. JW

      ... it sounds like.

    20. MM

      How do you create this context? Like, how do you store it?

    21. JW

      Yeah. So I mean, uh, I have certain files like you've got.

    22. MM

      Yeah.

    23. JW

      Now, like something like Gemini Spark, these are all now skills-

    24. MM

      Mm-hmm

    25. JW

      ... that are in there. I've turned on Personal Intelligence, so it knows kinda my backstory of all my Gmail and Calendar and Drive. Um, the other thing that I do is it's very good if you ask it. So one thing I try to do pretty regularly is I'll ask it, "What are the things I'm doing that I should no longer be doing?"

    26. MM

      Yeah.

    27. JW

      Or, "What are the patterns-

    28. MM

      I like that prompt a lot

    29. JW

      ... you see me using in Gemini that I should just not do or I can make better?"

    30. MM

      Mm-hmm.

  10. 19:58 – 20:55

    Why Everyone Needs to Organize Their Personal Context Now

    1. JW

      Yeah. Yeah.

    2. MM

      Okay. So it's, uh, I, I feel like we live in an era when everyone has to organize their personal context.

    3. JW

      Yeah.

    4. MM

      Because it's so important to launch your agents-

    5. JW

      Yeah

    6. MM

      ... 'cause they have to have a proper base on what they're acting.

    7. JW

      Right, right.

    8. MM

      If you and I were having coffee after this episode, I'd certainly pull out my phone and say, "Look what I tried this week. It changed how my team works." This is what I do all the time. To share these kinds of things that don't fit into the podcast, I started my own newsletter. Every week I write about AI tools, strategies, and experiments I'm running in my own business with real numbers, real results, templates that you can use, and also honest mistakes. If you want to be in the loop, the link is waiting for you in the description. Okay. Let's talk about AGI.

    9. JW

      Yeah.

    10. MM

      I've heard it. I've heard that word so many times-

    11. JW

      Yes. Yes

    12. MM

      ... yesterday on stage, and I'm like, "Oh," 'cause last year I remember Demis talking with Sergey-

    13. JW

      Yeah

    14. MM

      ... here at Google I/O.

    15. JW

      Yeah, yeah.

    16. MM

      And they, and they were, like, kind of predicting, like, maybe in five years.

  11. 20:55 – 22:35

    What AGI Actually Means

    1. MM

      Yesterday Demis was like, "We made another step towards AGI with this model."

    2. JW

      Yeah.

    3. MM

      What is AGI for me?

    4. JW

      Yeah.

    5. MM

      Like, for a normal person, what does that mean?

    6. JW

      Yeah, I mean, at this point it's been thrown around so much, it has lost, I think, a lot of its meaning in some ways. I, to be honest with you, I don't think about it all the time all that much. There's a spectrum of people who are talk about it every time they get on a stage. I'm probably more on the other side of it. I think at some level it's probably, like, is there a, an app or some sort of experience software you can probably talk to that is able to kind of answer almost, like, superhuman questions for you.

    7. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    8. JW

      And I try to think always the best products make you feel something.

    9. MM

      Yeah.

    10. JW

      And so to me, I think less about how many years away and things are, but more probably what are the feelings or the experience you would get interacting with something that's that good. And it probably would feel something, like, man, it just, like, saves me so much time.

    11. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JW

      It's like mental relief [laughs] of like, I don't have-

    13. MM

      Yeah.

    14. JW

      Or even the, I imagine, I'm hoping it'll be fun. Like, it'll be able to kind of bring up things and insights and connect dots that you wouldn't otherwise do. So I tend to think of it a little bit more that way, I guess, from like a product perspective-

    15. MM

      [laughs]

    16. JW

      ... as opposed to some of these maybe bigger thoughts and timelines and things and specific definitions.

    17. MM

      How, how do you think it's gonna change our workflow? 'Cause you're releasing so many features-

    18. JW

      Mm

    19. MM

      ... for workflows.

    20. JW

      Mm.

    21. MM

      Does, does, will the workflow exist at all if AI is capable of so many things?

    22. JW

      Yeah. I happen to think it still will actually, 'cause I think there's still gonna be a huge premium, and I'm actually sympathetic to the argument that actually things like human judgment, human taste, these things are actually gonna become more valuable-

    23. MM

      Mm-hmm

    24. JW

      ... than they have been even in today or in

  12. 22:35 – 23:42

    Why Human Taste Becomes More Valuable, Not Less

    1. JW

      the past.

    2. MM

      But then also AI can learn your taste. This is what I'm trying to do within my team right now.

    3. JW

      Yeah, yeah.

    4. MM

      Teach AI my taste, so we're collecting all my feedback that I'm giving to my team.

    5. JW

      Yeah.

    6. MM

      And like, let's, let's teach AI that so it can help me-

    7. JW

      Yeah

    8. MM

      ... make decisions.

    9. JW

      Yeah. Yeah. I think that may still happen and, and probably will. We do things similar where you can almost simulate, like, a meeting before the meeting ever happens-

    10. MM

      Mm

    11. JW

      ... and you can almost, like, anticipate the feedback you'll get.

    12. MM

      Yeah.

    13. JW

      Maybe that's what you're doing on your team.

    14. MM

      Yeah, yeah.

    15. JW

      The other thing I would say is I do think on the workflows point, we are seeing, like, areas where AI today can get you maybe to, like, a really good first draft, and maybe, let's assume it'll get you to a second, third, or fourth draft. It'll get better. But there's still something about creating, and I'm finding in small teams of people, it's just so fun. And it's hard to imagine, I don't know, I wouldn't wanna give that up. And you could imagine there will be, like, single-person giant companies or whatever, all the predictions. But to me it's like life is about the memories and the people you're doing it with too.

    16. MM

      Mm.

    17. JW

      And so it feels like hopefully we're gonna put a lot of power tools on the table-

    18. MM

      Yeah

    19. JW

      ... and let small groups of people just create

  13. 23:42 – 24:29

    Advice for Someone Starting Their Career Right Now

    1. JW

      amazing stuff.

    2. MM

      Yeah. What would you say to someone who's starting their career now and worried about AI?

    3. JW

      Mm. I mean, the, the advice I continue to try to even give myself is just every week be on the edge of these tools and try to figure out, like, do- build, build an intuition for what they're really good at and what they're not good at. And then the important thing is-What's, like, almost possible.

    4. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JW

      Because... And another maybe rev or two of the models, that may become possible.

    6. MM

      Yeah.

    7. JW

      So I think it's, that's probably, it's a new skill set. I think there's a lot of soft skills and maybe, like, EQ around some of this too is, like, how to deal with uncertainty, how to invent things, how to adapt to things. So there's a whole, whole set of things even beyond just the, the core tool usage, I would say.

    8. MM

      Totally.

  14. 24:29 – 26:13

    How Google Labs Ships Products in Two Weekends

    1. JW

      Yeah.

    2. MM

      Um, can we learn some of your culture as well? 'Cause you're-

    3. JW

      Mm

    4. MM

      ... you're rolling out so many products. Like-

    5. JW

      Mm

    6. MM

      ... as you mentioned, this voice feature, you-

    7. JW

      Yeah

    8. MM

      ... coded it, like, two weeks ago. [laughs]

    9. JW

      Yeah. [laughs]

    10. MM

      And it was on stage yesterday.

    11. JW

      Yeah.

    12. MM

      How are you able to manage all of that, let alone, like, having four kids? I can't imagine that.

    13. JW

      [laughs] Oh. Well-

    14. MM

      Is there a principle? Is there a life hack?

    15. JW

      Oh, I wish there was a life hack.

    16. MM

      [laughs]

    17. JW

      If you find it, let me know. [laughs] I mean, um, it's, I'd say it's a lot of things. I mean, part of it, I think, just as an individual, I try to think about what are the things in life that I really wanna prioritize. And some of them are at work, but a lot of them are outside work. I mean, life's way more than just work, right? So I think that's just, like, as a personal thing. I think at work, I think it's a lot about small teams with these tools can do remarkable things.

    18. MM

      Mm.

    19. JW

      And so there's been a big shift. A lot of our Google Labs projects, they start with, like, five, six people maybe, and you kind of are hunting for, like, what's an interesting problem to solve that'll really make a difference in a certain set of people's lives. And then you kind of just let them cook.

    20. MM

      Yeah.

    21. JW

      And we try to minimize all the reviews and all this stuff you could imagine, and I think that's, to me, the best thing people say is like, "Oh, this is like I'm empowered. We built this thing in two weekends." You know what I mean?

    22. MM

      Yeah.

    23. JW

      To me, that's like we're hitting the mark. And then what the other part of this is you'll build a lot of stuff. Some of it maybe you get lucky, it becomes an AI Studio or a NotebookLM or Google Flow. A lot of it, though, doesn't work. [laughs]

    24. MM

      What's the percentage of the things that don't work?

    25. JW

      Oh, no. I wish I would know.

    26. MM

      Can you track it?

    27. JW

      I mean, what I will say is it usually takes us three, four, five times on an idea-

    28. MM

      Uh-huh

    29. JW

      ... before we realize that's it or just ditch it.

  15. 26:13 – 29:39

    The Metric Josh Uses Instead of Retention Dashboards

    1. MM

      That you tweak it.

    2. JW

      Yeah.

    3. MM

      What's the metric that you're looking for?

    4. JW

      You know, it's funny. We don't look as much at, like, retention or dashboards. I always kind of tell the teams, and I try to go with them on a lot of these, you see it in people's eyes. When they use the thing, do their eyes light up, or are they, like, recoil? [laughs]

    5. MM

      How, how do you try... If you're an entrepreneur launch- launching something, how do you try to, like, sit down with a customer and just watch them use it?

    6. JW

      That's it. Go to the coffee shops, go to the student unions, go out in the real world. Really is I'm always trying to keep our teams as little as time possible in conference rooms thinking and theorizing about stuff. It's like, take it out here, go talk to those two guys, see what they say.

    7. MM

      Yeah.

    8. JW

      Um, and you- that's when you really know how far off you are-

    9. MM

      Mm-hmm

    10. JW

      ... [laughs] from your sort of lofty concepts to, like, reality.

    11. MM

      That's, that's fascinating. And so and then you just see people's faces light up, and this is how you know you're gonna continue working on it?

    12. JW

      Yeah, you're trying to develop an intuition of like... 'Cause the biggest thing is you make something no one wants.

    13. MM

      Yeah.

    14. JW

      That's the biggest risk.

    15. MM

      Yeah.

    16. JW

      And so you're trying to find, like, did that strike a nerve with her or with him? And, like, is this-

    17. MM

      You just see how, how you quantify that because you're-

    18. JW

      Yeah

    19. MM

      ... in a large organization also. Like do you just-

    20. JW

      Exactly. Exactly. [laughs]

    21. MM

      ... go to people and say, "Oh, I saw their eyes light up. We're gonna employ, like, a billion"? [laughs]

    22. JW

      Yeah, yeah. Well, you take it step by step.

    23. MM

      Uh.

    24. JW

      You don't go from, like, zero to a billion, but I do think it is, it's very countercultural to a very data-driven place like a Google or other big tech companies or even startups, right? You're looking for like-

    25. MM

      Yeah. You still want metrics, right?

    26. JW

      What's that? Yeah.

    27. MM

      Yeah.

    28. JW

      And we'll get to that, but it's kind of that early stage. One of the biggest things is doing, like, all big things start small. And we're very lucky at a place like Google. You saw Sundar showed that slide with all these huge products with a billion users and things.

    29. MM

      Yeah.

    30. JW

      But actually, all those things originally started going to coffee shops or showing it to your friends and seeing, like, is this something people are gonna like? And that's how NotebookLM started. That's how Flow started. That's how AI Studio started. So now, you know, they've got millions and millions of people, but it all kind of starts, people forget that it starts in trenches.

  16. 29:39 – 31:12

    The Next Shift Nobody Has Internalized Yet

    1. JW

      feel. Yeah.

    2. MM

      What's the next big AI trend you're predicting?

    3. JW

      Ooh, that's a good... Well, you-

    4. MM

      Or something that you're seeing maybe on the-

    5. JW

      Yeah. I mean, you hit on one. I'll think if there's others too. I would spend a couple of minutes-

    6. MM

      The knowledge workers?

    7. JW

      ... well, on voice.

    8. MM

      Oh, voice. Okay.

    9. JW

      I think we are on the cusp of, like, a big shift to voice.

    10. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    11. JW

      Um, so that one immediately comes to mind. The other one I am not sure people have fully internalized, even at Google, is how fast these models are gonna get.And how quickly. So 3.5 Flash is already way faster than what we had before. But even the demo we showed, Sundar showed with the dinosaur, the dino game-

    12. MM

      Yeah

    13. JW

      ... 1,500 tokens per second. This is coming. This is not theoretical. Like, we have this running at Google internally right now. And when you can stream that fast, it changes everything. We've seen that over time with Search. Every time we make a feature faster, more people use it.

    14. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    15. JW

      So speed's a feature. And I think that's one part of these models that's, like, just around the corner-

    16. MM

      Speed

    17. JW

      ... that's gonna be incredible.

    18. MM

      Okay. So w- we're gonna be iterating on so many ideas, I guess, really-

    19. JW

      That's right

    20. MM

      ... fast.

    21. JW

      Well, practically, that's how it's gonna happen, is you, what used to take, like, send, wait a few seconds, is just gonna be like boom, boom, boom, boom.

    22. MM

      Yeah.

    23. JW

      And that'll be amazing for all the image, video, audio stuff. It'll also be amazing for anything with agents or anything with multi-steps because it'll just compress.

    24. MM

      Yeah.

    25. JW

      And so I think-

    26. MM

      And the pace of research accelerating is what-

    27. JW

      That's the thing

    28. MM

      ... I'm very much for.

    29. JW

      Yeah, then you apply that to something like our science tools or-

    30. MM

      Yeah

  17. 31:12 – 33:33

    What His Five-Year-Old's Future Looks Like

    1. JW

      be fun.

    2. MM

      Yeah. My last-

    3. JW

      Yeah

    4. MM

      ... question is-

    5. JW

      Yeah, yeah

    6. MM

      ... your daughters are five, six years old.

    7. JW

      Yeah, yeah.

    8. MM

      Mine are five and, five and six.

    9. JW

      Yeah, yeah.

    10. MM

      Uh, she's almost five.

    11. JW

      Yeah.

    12. MM

      What do you think their future's gonna look like?

    13. JW

      Oh, it's so hard to imagine right now.

    14. MM

      Is it gonna be totally different? Or do you ever think it's just gonna be the same, things will happen a different way, but it's gonna be the same life?

    15. JW

      Yeah. I mean, it's interesting 'cause I think in some ways human nature is remarkably resilient, right? For its-

    16. MM

      Yeah

    17. JW

      ... both, like-

    18. MM

      We still fall in love

    19. JW

      ... virtues and vices

    20. MM

      ... we wanna achieve something.

    21. JW

      Exactly.

    22. MM

      Yeah.

    23. JW

      So some of that I predict will be the same. Um, but I do think, like, our kind of almost human computer interaction feels like it will be way different.

    24. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    25. JW

      And I don't know, you talk to your parents, you mentioned your dad earlier. I think about my parents or my wife's, and it's like you hear them talk about when they were in the workforce and suddenly, like, spreadsheets showed up. And you know, for us it's like, "Oh yeah, of course. We worked in a group."

    26. MM

      Yeah.

    27. JW

      It's like no big deal. But it's like, um, I wonder if there'll be feelings like that where our, like, our, our girls will be like, "Yeah, of course you just talk to this thing and it does all this magic-

    28. MM

      Yeah

    29. JW

      ... and it's, like, done in, like, 200 milliseconds." [laughs]

    30. MM

      Yeah.

Episode duration: 33:33

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