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Google employees are ridiculing the company's AI tools, calling them unreliable and time-consuming, despite CEO Sundar Pichai's enthusiasm for the technology
Google's CEO Sundar Pichai has been touting the company's AI tools, claiming that 75% of the company's new code is now AI-generated [1]. However, it appears that not everyone at Google is on board with the technology. Internal messages obtained by 404 Media show employees mocking AI tools, including the company's own internal AI coding tool, Jetski, and complaining that they are unreliable and make their jobs harder [1]. The derisive images were posted to an internal message board called "Memegen" and received over 100 thumbs up from other employees [1].
Key takeaways
The backlash against AI at Google is not limited to a few isolated incidents. According to one employee, the total number of anti-AI memes shared inside Google in the past year is in the "high hundreds / thousands" [1]. The memes are often cutting in their disgust with the tech, with one image using a screenshot of the company's stage presentation and replacing one of the words with "slop" [1]. Another meme mocked Google higher-ups' enthusiasm for the tech, with a picture of a fish with a huge forehead butting its way next to a diver trying to focus on their job [1].
The use of AI at Google is not just a matter of employee morale, but also has significant implications for the way work is done at the company. As one employee complained, AI may allow code to be cranked out faster than ever, but it's just shifting the burden of work further down the line [1]. Coders could use AI to generate 100 individual tasks, but seeing the job to the end still needs human review, taking the same amount of time without AI [1]. This has led to concerns that the company's infrastructure and engineering culture are not well-suited to the pressures of using AI to accelerate work [1].
The controversy over AI at Google is not just an internal matter, but also has broader implications for the tech industry as a whole. As other companies, such as Red Ventures, begin to use AI to generate content, there are concerns about the quality and reliability of the output [2]. The use of AI to generate articles, for example, has been shown to be prone to errors and plagiarism [2]. As Kevin Hughes, the head of AI content for Red's EDU division, noted, the impacts of AI on the job market will be profound, with copywriters needing to reskill as copy editors [2]. However, the lack of transparency and accountability in the use of AI to generate content raises significant concerns about the future of the industry [2].
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AI-assisted synthesis by the TrendWatcher Editorial Desk · sourced from 2 outlets · Jun 11, 2026 · How we report
Employees complain that the AI-generated code is unreliable and creates a bottleneck in the workflow, as it requires significant time for human review and testing.
While exact figures are difficult to confirm, one employee estimated that the total number of anti-AI memes shared over the past year is in the high hundreds or thousands.
Jetski is an internal AI coding tool used by Google that has been a frequent subject of employee criticism and memes when it malfunctions.