Google’s Sundar Pichai praises India: ‘Well positioned as shift to AI happens’

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that technology is serving opportunities for India and other emerging countries like never before. He said, “India was never going to cross the developed world in personal computing penetration but on mobile more people got access as a percentage of the population than the prior generation. People didn’t have landlines, but most people got cell phones. With each technology shift you have a better opportunity to drive that penetration. This is genuinely true with AI.”

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The comments come a day the Google boss announced several of his company’s innovations in a keynote address at Google I/O connect which is the tech giant’s annual developer conference.

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“AI tools for a lot of our products… India is number one country in terms of user base. To be able to serve them we’re committed to bringing the same AI tools. We see a lot of developer activity from India on top of our AI platforms already. I think it’s going to be an exciting moment. India will be well positioned as the shift to AI happens,” he said.

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He added, “As we make more progress with AI, we’ve to bring more perspectives into the field. We need to involve social scientists in AI as we do more in the field, and as we think about responsible AI.”

At the annual developers conference, Google unveiled a retooled search engine that will frequently favor responses crafted by artificial intelligence (AI) over website links. The Google CEO said, “This bold and responsible approach is fundamental to delivering on our mission and making AI more helpful for everyone.”