California., May 28 – Google co-founder Sergey Brin has returned to active duty at the tech giant, focusing on advancing artificial intelligence as Google faces mounting competition from rivals including OpenAI and Perplexity.
Brin, who stepped down from his executive role at Google parent Alphabet Inc. in 2019, said he now works out of the company’s headquarters “pretty much every day” to support the development of its Gemini AI models. “AI is where my scientific interest is,” Brin said during a surprise appearance at the company’s I/O developer conference last week.
“I tend to be pretty deep in the technical details. And that’s a luxury I really enjoy,” he added, speaking alongside Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, Google’s artificial intelligence research lab.
Brin, 50, reengaged with the company in 2023, as Google accelerated efforts to keep pace with advances made by competitors in the generative AI space. Gemini, Google’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is seen as a cornerstone of its AI push.
The billionaire entrepreneur also commented on Google’s renewed focus on smart wearables. He acknowledged the missteps of Google Glass, a project he once championed, noting that he had underestimated the complexities of consumer hardware and pricing challenges. “I just didn’t know anything about consumer electronic supply chains,” Brin said.
Now, with AI technology “far more capable,” Brin voiced confidence in Google’s latest move into Extended Reality (XR). At the I/O 2025 conference, Google unveiled a prototype of AI-powered smart glasses featuring Gemini integration. The XR operating system is being developed in collaboration with hardware partners such as Samsung.
Brin’s reappearance underscores Google’s effort to strengthen its technological leadership at a time when innovation in AI and mixed reality is reshaping the competitive landscape.
