Advancing bold and responsible approaches to AI

We apply our AI advances to our core products and services to enhance and multiply the usefulness and value of all our core products and services. Billions of people use Google AI when they engage with Google Search, Google Photos, Google Maps, Google Workspace; hardware devices like Pixel and Nest; and accessibility applications like Android Voice Access, Live Transcribe, and Project Relate. We’re excited about the potential for AI to continue to make our products even more useful and transformative.

We believe AI responsibility is not just about avoiding risks, but using AI to help improve people's lives and address social and scientific challenges. In 2018, we became one of the first companies to issue AI Principles, and we built guardrails for stated applications we will not pursue. Our AI Principles offer a framework to guide our decisions on research, product design, and development as well as ways to think about solving the numerous design, engineering, and operational challenges associated with any emerging technology.

But, as we know, issuing principles is one thing—applying them is another. This report involves our most comprehensive look at how we put the AI Principles into practice. We believe a formalized governance structure to support the implementation of our AI Principles along with rigorous testing and ethics reviews, are necessary to put the principles into practice. See more about how we pursue Responsible AI.

No single company can progress this approach alone. AI responsibility is a collaborative exercise that requires bringing multiple perspectives to the table to help ensure balance.

That’s why we’re committed to working in partnership with others to get AI right. Over the years, we’ve built communities of researchers and academics dedicated to creating standards and guidance for responsible AI development. We collaborate with university researchers at institutions around the world, and to support international standards and shared best practices, we’ve contributed to ISO and IEC Joint Technical Committee’s standardization program in the area of Artificial Intelligence.

AI will be critical to our scientific, geopolitical, and economic future, enabling current and future generations to live in a more prosperous, healthy, secure, and sustainable world. Governments, the private sector, educational institutions, and other stakeholders must work together to capitalize on AI’s benefits, while simultaneously managing risks.

Tackling these challenges will again require a multi-stakeholder approach to governance. Some of these challenges will be more appropriately addressed by standards and shared best practices, while others will require regulation—for example, requiring high-risk AI systems to undergo expert risk assessments tailored to specific applications. Other challenges will require fundamental research, in partnership with communities and civil society, to better understand potential harms and mitigations. International alignment will also be essential to develop common policy approaches that reflect democratic values and avoid fragmentation.

Our Policy Agenda for Responsible Progress in Artificial Intelligence outlines specific policy recommendations for governments around the world to realize the opportunity presented by AI, promote responsibility and reduce the risk of misuse, and enhance global security.