Google CEO Sundar Pichai
But when it was launched in 2022, it had no memory function, was not connected to any tools, and had no context. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface,” he added.
The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life,” Pichai told Alex Kantrowitz during an interview on the Big Technology Podcast. Brockman rejected the concept of “superapps” as inaccurate. What people really need is the ability to get work done and achieve goals,” he said.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has rejected the idea of a world where user interfaces disappear entirely, saying visual displays and interactive screens will still play an essential role in how people interact with technology. Google’s top executive acknowledged the appeal of voice-driven computing while making the case for why interfaces will remain necessary. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. “You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. In July, Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, outlined OpenAI’s plan to integrate conversational AI with autonomous agents. “From a broader perspective, what we really want to build lies within AGI. Think about what people have been using since ChatGPT came out – it’s a language model. You talk, it replies, which is great. So, it’s just a conversation. Intelligence is just a part of it. “You don’t need any product – what do you want it to look like? What’s the interface? You and I can have a continuous conversation, and some form of companion entity can achieve goals for you. Interfaces will disappear,” he added.
Pichai’s response centers on a perspective shared by OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman, who previously suggested that the ultimate AI product might feature no interface at all, relying purely on natural conversation. “Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing.
It’s amazing,” Pichai said, noting that users no longer have to spend time backspacing or manually fixing text after speaking. To explain how conversational computing has evolved, Pichai highlighted recent advances in Google’s own voice technology. On Pixel phones, the Gemini voice models have reached a level where users no longer need to speak in rigid, carefully worded commands. “I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. Despite the efficiency of voice input, Pichai argued that visual and physical interfaces remain indispensable for entertainment and media consumption. “But there are going to be moments [when] you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time,” he explained. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.