From Answers to Actions: Google Search in the Age of AI Agents | Nick Fox, Google

How do you reinvent a product billions of people already use? Can AI help us learn more deeply instead of simply taking shortcuts? And as agents take on more tasks, how do we keep humans in control?

In this episode of AI to the DNA, the podcast for everyone who wants to really understand and apply AI, I sit down with Nick Fox at Google’s AI Center in Berlin. Nick is Google’s Senior Vice President of Knowledge & Information, overseeing Search, Ads, Geo and Commerce. After 23 years at Google, he brings a perspective on how technological shifts become products people actually use.

We explore how AI Overviews and AI Mode are changing Search, from short keywords to longer questions and ongoing conversations. Nick explains Google’s experimental development process, why user readiness matters alongside technical capability, and how to distinguish a bad idea from one whose time hasn’t come yet.

We then turn to learning. Nick describes how AI can adapt to what a student understands and connect difficult concepts to their interests. We discuss the risks of shortcuts and cheating, and how Google creates time for its own people to learn through experimentation and sharing what works.

Finally, we look at agents and the growing volume of information they produce. Should users have to organize everything, or should products help them find what they need? We discuss permissions, transparency and alignment—and why removing tedious work should still leave people in charge of decisions they care about.

I’m Christoph Magnussen and at AI to the DNA, I’m not just asking how to use AI. I’m asking why it works the way it does so you can gain insights on the nature of this technology.