In a current interview with the BBC, Sundar Pichai emphasised that AI isn’t a standalone supply of data. He affirmed that AI works along with search and that AI and Search have their makes use of. Pichai additionally stated that AI isn’t a alternative for both search, the knowledge ecosystem, or precise material specialists.
A variety of tweets and articles mischaracterized Pichai’s remarks, together with a BBC Information social media publish summarizing the interview with the road, “Don’t blindly belief what AI tells you.”
Tweet By BBC Information
Do not blindly belief what AI tells you, says Google’s Sundar Pichai https://t.co/h3yuTJnNOV
— BBC Information (UK) (@BBCNews) November 18, 2025
That phrasing misleadingly means that Pichai stated don’t belief AI. However that’s not what Pichai meant. His full reply emphasised that AI isn’t a standalone supply of data, that the knowledge ecosystem is larger than that.
AI Makes Errors, That’s Why There’s Grounding
Sundar Pichai had simply completed describing how AI will, in just a few years time, usher in new alternatives and create new sorts of jobs primarily based on what people can do with AI. He used the instance of envisioning a feature-length film.
In response to that assertion, the interviewer challenged Pichai with a query in regards to the fallibility of AI, saying that what Pichai described is constructed on the idea that AI works.
Pichai’s assertion was broadly about how folks will use AI in just a few years time. The interviewer’s query was narrowly centered on the accuracy and fact of AI. The dialog between the interviewer and Pichai contained this dynamic, the place the interviewer saved narrowing the main target to AI in isolation and Pichai saved broadening the main target to the broader info ecosystem inside which AI exists.
The interviewer retains urgent Pichai with variations of the identical slender query:
- Is AI dependable?
- Doesn’t AI make info much less dependable?
- Shouldn’t Google be held accountable as a result of this mannequin was invented there?
Pichai repeatedly solutions by inserting AI inside a wider context:
- AI isn’t the one system folks use.
- Search and different grounded sources stay important.
- Journalism, docs, academics, and different specialists matter.
- The knowledge ecosystem is bigger than AI.
The interviewer saved zooming in to take a look at the AI “tree,” and Pichai responded by zooming out to elucidate AI inside the context of the knowledge ecosystem “forest.” That is the important thing to understanding what Pichai means by his solutions.
In response to Pichai’s statements of how AI will remodel society within the coming years, the interviewer requested in regards to the truthfulness of AI at present:
“So all the hopes, the hype, the valuations, the social good thing about this transformation you’ve simply described, you’ve constructed on a central assumption that the expertise capabilities, that it really works.
Let me suggest one easy check of Gemini, which is your booming ChatGPT form of competitor. Is it correct all the time? Does it inform the reality?”
Pichai defined that generative AI isn’t a supply of fact, it’s merely making a statistical prediction of learn how to reply. In that context he stated that Google Search is what grounds AI in details and fact. Grounding is a system for anchoring generative AI with real-world details as a substitute of counting on its coaching information.
Pichai responded:
“Look, we’re working exhausting from a scientific standpoint to floor it in actual world info. And there are areas, a part of what we’ve finished with Gemini is we’ve introduced the ability of Google Search. So it makes use of Google Search as a instrument to attempt to reply, to offer solutions extra precisely. However there are moments, these AI fashions basically have a expertise by which they’re predicting what’s subsequent, and they’re vulnerable to errors.”
Use Instruments For What They’re Good At
The subsequent a part of Pichai’s reply underlines the truth that AI and Search are instruments that folks use for various functions. The purpose he’s making is that AI isn’t a standalone expertise that has changed Search. He stated to make use of every instrument for “what they’re good at.”
Pichai defined:
“In the present day, I feel, we take satisfaction within the quantity of labor we put in to offer as correct info as doable. However the present state-of-the-art AI expertise is vulnerable to some errors.
Because of this folks additionally use Google Search, and we now have different merchandise that are extra grounded in offering correct info, proper? However the identical instruments are useful if you wish to creatively write one thing.
So you need to study to make use of these instruments for what they’re good at and never blindly belief every part they are saying.”
Not One Standalone System: The Data Ecosystem Issues
The interviewer echoed Pichai’s assertion about not blindly trusting then challenged him once more about reliability.
The interviewer requested:
“OK, don’t blindly belief.
However let me counsel to you that you’ve got a particular duty as a result of this complete mannequin, kind of mannequin, transformer mannequin, the T in ChatGPT, was invented right here beneath you. And you recognize that it’s a chance. And I simply surprise in the event you settle for the tip results of all this unbelievable funding is the knowledge is much less dependable?”
Pichai returned to his first reply, that AI isn’t all that there’s, that AI is only one supply of data from a terrific many sources, together with from precise human specialists. The interviewer was making an attempt to pin Pichai right down to speaking about generative AI and Pichai was answering by saying that it’s not simply AI.
Pichai defined:
“I feel in the event you solely assemble programs standalone, and also you solely depend on that, that may be true.
Which is why I feel we now have to make the knowledge ecosystem… needs to be a lot richer than simply having AI expertise being the only real product in it.
…Fact issues. Journalism issues. All the surrounding issues we now have at present issues, proper?
So in the event you’re a pupil, you’re speaking to your instructor.
If as a client, you’re going to a health care provider, you need to belief your physician.
Yeah, all of that issues.”
Pichai’s level is that AI exists inside a bigger world instruments, human information and experience, not as a alternative for it. His emphasis on academics, docs, and journalism reveals that human experience stays a excessive customary for fact and accuracy. Pichai declined to reply questions in a method that handled AI as the only real system for solutions. As an alternative, he saved emphasizing that AI is just one a part of the place we get info.
Because of this Pichai’s reply can’t be decreased to a click-baity line like “Don’t blindly belief what AI tells you, says Google’s Sundar Pichai.” The deeper message is about how he, and by extension, Google, views AI as one instrument out of many.
Watch the interview at in regards to the 10 minute mark:
Featured picture: Screenshot
