A new divide has reportedly emerged among engineers within Google, with some allowed to use ...

A divide has reportedly emerged within Google as the company pushes wider adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) tools across its workforce. According to a Business Insider report, some employees, particularly within its DeepMind unit, have been allowed to use external AI tools for coding, while most others are restricted to internal systems.

The situation has led to concerns among engineers about access, performance and fairness. The development comes at a time when Google is increasing expectations for employees to use AI in their daily work.

Claude vs Gemini: Access gap inside Google

According to the publication, some employees at Google DeepMind have been given access to Claude for coding tasks. At the same time, most engineers across Google are required to use the company’s own AI tools, including Gemini.The report said that this difference in access has created tensions internally. Some employees believe that Google’s internal tools are not as effective as Claude for coding, leading to frustration among teams that do not have access to external tools, it says.

AI use tied to performance expectations at Google

The divide comes as Google increases its focus on AI adoption across the company. According to the report, some engineers have been given specific AI-related goals that could impact their performance reviews.

In certain cases, employees are expected not only to use AI for generating code but also to build tools that improve efficiency within their workflows.The report noted that Google generally restricts the use of external tools for several reasons. The company relies heavily on custom-built internal systems, and it also follows a “dogfooding” strategy, where employees use its own products to test and improve them before release.Other technology companies, however, allow more flexibility. For example, Meta has reportedly allowed employees to use external AI tools like Claude for internal work.

Debate over AI adoption

The issue gained attention after a post by software engineer Steve Yegge, who claimed that Google’s internal AI adoption was lagging. He wrote: “The TL;DR is that Google engineering appears to have the same AI adoption footprint as John Deere, the tractor company.”The comment drew a response from DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who said: “Maybe tell your buddy to do some actual work and to stop spreading absolute nonsense. This post is completely false and just pure clickbait.”