Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian has a message for anyone anxious about losing their job to AI: don’t panic. In a new interview with Big Technology, Kurian said artificial intelligence isn’t replacing workers — it’s helping them keep pace with growing demands and ambitions. His remarks come amid ongoing debate over how automation will reshape the modern workplace.
Kurian argued that AI’s current role is to close the gap between human capability and potential, not eliminate workers altogether. Citing Google’s Customer Engagement Suite — an AI-powered platform that assists service teams — he said no clients have used it to cut staff. Instead, it helps customers get faster answers to questions they might not otherwise call about.
“When we first introduced it, people asked, ‘Does this mean we won’t need agents anymore?’ But almost none of our clients have let anyone go,” Kurian said.
Kurian, who spent over 20 years at Oracle before joining Google, joins a growing list of tech leaders striking a more optimistic tone about AI. Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said that AI has made Google engineers 10% more productive, freeing them to focus on creative and meaningful work.
Both leaders see AI as an accelerator, not an automator — a tool that boosts productivity without displacing talent. As Kurian put it, the technology’s real purpose is to help people “keep up” in a fast-changing world, not to push them out of it.
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