Google DeepMind's Lila Ibrahim has shifted from chief operating officer to Chief AI Readiness Officer, a role she says is focused not on DeepMind's own preparedness but on helping workers, schools, and communities adapt as artificial intelligence accelerates into everyday life.
Google DeepMind's Lila Ibrahim may hold the only job title of its kind anywhere in the world — Chief AI Readiness Officer — and she says she would not have taken it without a core conviction that the technology's benefits will ultimately outweigh its risks.
"I don't think I could do this job if I didn't believe that the benefits will outweigh the risks," Ibrahim told CNBC's Julia Boorstin in an interview on the "CNBC Changemakers" podcast, published Tuesday.
Ibrahim joined DeepMind in 2018 and spent the years that followed helping the organization navigate both the technical and ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, she transitioned out of her role as the company's chief operating officer into the newly defined readiness position.
The job, Ibrahim explains, is not about DeepMind's own internal preparedness. It is about helping workers, schools, and communities understand and adapt as AI moves out of research labs and into scientific discovery, weather forecasting, education, and workplace productivity.
For Ibrahim, the central question is not how capable AI will become, but whether the people most affected by it will have any say in how it is deployed. "While I might not know what it will do, I know that we still can — we have the agency to shape how we get there," she said, adding that shaping the right outcome requires direct engagement with affected communities.
Her advice to workers worried about automation is direct: start using the tools. "You have to start using AI yourself and create the time and space to do it," she said. "You don't have to be the smartest in the room."
Ibrahim applies that philosophy internally at DeepMind. She describes briefing document synthesis as the "most transformational" AI use case in her daily work, noting that the ability to absorb information rapidly frees her teams to concentrate on higher-order thinking. "Being able to be efficient in that and then free up everybody to do the work — the big thinking — way, way better use of their time," she said.
To gauge how her teams are engaging with the technology, Ibrahim applies a three-question framework: How are you using AI? What would help you use it more? Where are you not using AI? She said that third question points to the irreplaceable human contribution — the capabilities organizations should be hiring for, rewarding, and continuing to develop.
"AI can help automate all of my tasks, but it cannot automate my Tuesdays," she said.
Ibrahim's thinking on readiness extends well beyond the office. With two teenage daughters, she has spoken publicly about the need for schools to integrate AI education before students enter the workforce. "They're going to inherit the technology we're developing, and yet they're not getting a voice in how this is being taught to them," she said, calling on schools to work alongside teachers so that students "grow up more literate in what the technology is and isn't, and also what are responsible use cases for it."
Her own career traces a path from graduate work in electrical engineering to chip design at Intel — where she worked on the Pentium processor — to venture capital, and ultimately to Google DeepMind. That arc, she said, reinforces her belief in continuous learning as the most durable response to technological change. "So much has already changed in our lifetime, and the same will be [true for] the generation that follows," she said. "All we can do is teach a love of learning and curiosity, and the resilience to know that change is coming, and they can actually have a role in how that change happens."
As AI-driven labor market concerns deepen across industries, Ibrahim's newly created C-suite role signals that at least one of the world's leading AI developers is investing formally in the question of societal adaptation — even as the broader debate over who bears responsibility for that adaptation, and at what cost, remains unresolved.
Marc Sabatini is a staff writer at TechEchelon covering enterprise software, cybersecurity, and the regulatory beats that shape both. He focuses on the deal flow and policy decisions that move markets.
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