Google is dialing up the pressure for more employees to use AI — and not just engineers

• Google managers are pushing more employees to use AI.
• Employees in non-technical roles said they have been told they are expected to use AI.
• In some cases, employees have been told AI will factor into their performance review.

Google is ramping up pressure for more employees to use AI — and it's not just software engineers who are expected to embrace it.

In recent weeks, managers at Google have informed some workers in non-technical roles that they are also expected to use AI in their workflows, four employees familiar with the changes told Business Insider.

In some cases, non-technical staff have been explicitly told that their AI use would be considered in their performance reviews later this year, two of the employees said.

The changes mark the next phase of Google trying to infuse AI into every corner of the company. Last year, Google told some software engineers that using AI was being formally made part of their job expectations, Business Insider previously reported. Google leaders have said that AI is increasingly responsible for code generated at the company.

Like its peers, Google has been encouraging employees to use AI in the hopes it will make them more productive. Meta employees were told that their 2026 performance reviews would assess their "AI-driven impact," Business Insider previously reported. Microsoft leaders have also told staff that AI is no longer optional.

CEO Sundar Pichai told employees last year that the company's rivals would be harnessing AI internally, and so Google must do the same.

Expectations for using AI at Google vary across teams and roles. Engineers are expected to use AI coding assistants that can generate code and answer technical questions. Non-technical employees are being pushed to use AI to create strategy documents, analyze sales calls, and build customer insights, two members of staff told Business Insider.

In some cases, these expectations are being formally enshrined in employees' role profiles — an internal description of their job's tasks and expectations. Two employees in non-technical roles told Business Insider they were explicitly told by managers that their use of AI would be considered during performance reviews, known as Googler Reviews and Development (GRAD).

Two employees in sales roles told Business Insider they are expected to use internal AI tools that record phone calls and take notes. Some of them have been given quotas of how many times a week they are expected to use the tools, they said. In some cases, expectations will also be tied to seniority. A third employee said they were told that more senior staff were expected to demonstrate a better understanding of AI use than their more junior counterparts.

A Google spokesperson told Business Insider that managers across technical and non-technical roles have the discretion to evaluate employees based on their use of AI. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that some software engineer roles would be graded on their use of AI.

Google ramps up internal AI use

Google has been gradually turning up the dials on AI use internally. In June, engineering vice president Megan Kacholia sent an email to software engineers encouraging them to use AI tools and informing them that their job descriptions were updated to include using AI to solve coding problems.

Google CFO Anat Ashkenazi said on the company's Q4 2025 earnings call that around 50% of code at Google is written by agents, which is then reviewed by human engineers. That number appears to be increasing: Pichai put the figure at over 30% in April.

Googlers are generally permitted to use only their company's internal AI tools. Employees can ask questions to a special version of Google's Gemini chatbot, named Duckie, that is familiar with internal documentation. There is also a coding tool named Goose, which is trained on Google's technical history, Business Insider previously reported.

Internal AI tools are also designed so employees can input sensitive company information without risking it being leaked to the public. In some cases, these are third-party tools that have been modified for Google's internal needs. One tool used by Cloud sales employees is Yoodli, an AI avatar that sales reps can role-play conversations with before picking up the phone to call a customer.

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