The Google Boss And The Massive AI Gamble
Newscast
BBC
4.4 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, the CEO of Google gives a rare interview to discuss AI, economic risk, climate change and much more.
Faisal Islam has been speaking to Sundar Pichai, the head of Google’s parent company Alphabet, about the future of the AI bubble.
The tech boss warned that “no company is going to be immune” if the AI bubble bursts after its current period of boom. This comes as some analysts expressed fear that stock markets are heading for a repeat of the dotcom bubble burst of the late 1990s.
They also discussed the environmental cost of powering AI, the potential risks to jobs and whether the UK will benefit from the current boom. BBC economics editor Faisal Islam joins Adam in the studio.
You can listen to a longer version of the interview with Sundar Pichai here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0mh56kj
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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Shiler Mahmoudi and Anna Harris. The social producer was Beth Pritchard. The technical producer was James Piper. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:06.4 | Faisal, you've been to San Francisco? |
| 0:08.1 | I have. |
| 0:08.8 | And you've been to the Googleplex. |
| 0:11.0 | I have. |
| 0:11.6 | What's the Googleplex like? |
| 0:12.8 | And that's the HQ of Google. |
| 0:14.3 | I should say. |
| 0:15.0 | I've never been there before. |
| 0:16.4 | And it is less sort of hippie tech hangout that like the last time we got some filming in there. |
| 0:23.5 | And it's now just massive operation. |
| 0:26.6 | Actually, there's the old Googleplex. |
| 0:28.0 | And then over the, over the park, there's this astonishing Heatherwick building, Thomas Heatherwick, I think, the architect, which has deep mind, |
| 0:38.1 | which is where all the secret, extraordinary James Bond stuff happens. |
| 0:42.5 | And so there's two quite different places. |
| 0:44.1 | So it's, and they were skipping around rather happy. |
| 0:47.3 | No wonder, because everybody that works at Google has shares and their shares at that point, |
| 0:52.0 | I don't know what's happening today, had doubled in value over |
| 0:54.4 | seven months. |
| 0:56.6 | So a very happy workplace. |
| 0:58.3 | Well, yes, as many would be motivated in such ways, but also gorgeous November sun in California, |
| 1:05.7 | which I've never seen before. |
... |
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