Google co-founder Sergey Brin has resumed leadership of the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) initiative amid rising competition from Anthropic. Brin previously spearheaded Google’s AI efforts, which faced challenges following the unexpected success of generative AI, particularly after OpenAI’s ChatGPT launch in 2022. In response to recent advancements in Anthropic’s AI models, Google has established a dedicated team of researchers and engineers, referred to as a strike team, to enhance its AI programming capabilities. The move follows concerns raised by Google researchers that their Gemini AI models lag behind Anthropic’s coding tools and require enhancements.
Brin and Google DeepMind Chief Technology Officer Koray Kavukcuoglu, actively engaged in the strike team, have urged employees to align with AI agents. Google aims to refine its coding skills for tasks like software creation by analyzing files and understanding user intentions, with the ultimate goal of developing a self-improving AI system. The company’s primary focus is on building models for internal use trained on its proprietary code.
Although Google’s AI models tailored for internal use cannot be publicly released due to the specificity of Google’s code, they can serve as a foundation for creating other models intended for public use. In contrast to competitors, Google lags significantly in utilizing AI tools for code writing. While Anthropic relies on AI to entirely generate code, Google’s Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi notes that only about 50 percent of Google’s code is written by coding agents.
Anthropic’s ascent driven by its code generation capabilities has not only impacted Google but also OpenAI. OpenAI recently discontinued its Sora AI video generation model to concentrate on code-related projects and enterprise applications. The company has introduced a significant update to its coding tool, Codex, enabling it to interact with various computer applications, perform tasks autonomously, and not just generate code.
Reflecting its growing popularity, Anthropic’s revenue run-rate exceeded $30 billion in March 2026, a substantial increase from $9 billion in 2025. Despite this financial growth, some users express concerns about Anthropic’s AI performance, questioning its ability to handle complex tasks and seeking alternative solutions.