Hassabis says replacing engineers with AI lacks imagination
google deepmind ceo demis hassabis criticized tech firms for laying off engineers, arguing that increased ai productivity means companies should build more, not shrink.
speaking ahead of google i/o, deepmind ceo demis hassabis pushed back against the narrative that ai will replace software engineers, criticizing companies like amazon and salesforce for blaming layoffs on ai. hassabis argued that companies reducing headcount due to ai productivity exhibit a 'lack of imagination,' suggesting that superior tools should enable companies to scale their ambitions rather than cut costs. google debuted gemini 3.5 flash, a faster, cheaper model designed for complex agentic coding tasks like migrating codebases and fixing bugs, alongside a new cloud agent called spark. these releases aim to help google catch up to rivals like openai and anthropic, who currently lead in developer adoption according to industry surveys.