Twenty years ago, India was much more corrupt and less able to react as a global marketplace and that’s changing right now, Google X Co-Founder Sebastian Thrun told The Hindu. However, he also added that India was “not anywhere near” either the U.S. or China in terms of Artificial Intelligence capabilities. 

“India is going through an incredibly great transformation right now,” Mr. Thrun said on the sidelines of the South Summit 2026, co-organised by IE University in Madrid. “India twenty years ago was much more corrupt and less able to react as a global marketplace and that’s really changing right now.”

He added that a conjunction of factors pose challenges for large countries like India, instead of any single factor. 

‘Optimistic about India’

“It’s the education of people, the availability of capital, the ability of the government to empower businesses,” Mr. Thrun explained. “And I see India to be on the correct path right now. I’ve seen a massive improvement.”

“But what I also see is that India is not anywhere near the United States or China at this point in terms of AI,” he added.

“I’m optimistic for India, but a number of things have to come together such as education, law, anti-corruption governments, and finance,” Mr. Thrun said. “And if even one of these elements is missing, it’s very hard to be as effective as the United States.”

Fight against deepfakes

Speaking further about how AI is currently being deployed, the Google X co-founder said that policymakers, influencers, medical psychologists, regulators, and the technology sector itself should work together to make sure that the technology is used responsibly. 

“For example, today there is a threat that AI is being used to create fake news,” he said. “And we already find that in many cases fake images are indistinguishable from real images and the same is true for video.”

“What happens if a video emerges just a day before a U.S. election about a terrorist attack or something, and it is detected as fake only after voting is over,” he asked. “Or something else that can move the stock market?”

He added that it is very important that all stakeholders work together to not get into a world where criminals, terrorists, or state actors can use fake news to influence other people.

AI’s impact on kinds of jobs

Regarding the other impacts of AI on common lives, Mr. Thrun said it was “amazing to see” that many highly specialised areas of work, where people often train 10 or more years to acquire a certain specialised skill, are now done as well or better by AI.

“So, if you define the pinnacle of human intelligence to be someone who’s extremely repetitive and extremely precise, like a lawyer or like a medical doctor, you’ll find that repetition and precision is done by machines even better than by people,” he explained. 

“And that will shift the sweet spot of human productivity from highly specialised tasks into much broader and more general tasks, which I consider to be a good thing because the more general you work, the more you will be able to innovate and experience new things,” Mr. Thrun added.

(The reporter is in Madrid at the invitation of IE University)