Leading AI Innovation at Google

The Path Toward Innovation

Growing up in Tanzania, Nigeria, and India, Salgar saw how innovative technology was changing the way people lived their lives and spent their time. By high school, he knew computing would be central to his path in life. This led him to pursue a bachelor’s in computer engineering at Pune Institute of Computer Technology, then a masters in computer science at Stanford. 

As a graduate student, Salgar worked part time at a medical startup; after graduating, he joined a data storage security startup, learning what made a business run. His technological education was still important, but working at a startup helped him see that other functions—sales, marketing, and finance—were also essential to success. 

This understanding deepened when Salgar earned his MBA at Booth, which he calls a truly “transformational experience.” Salgar enjoyed being part of a student body with diverse skillsets and experiences. His classmates all had unique goals, ambitions, and talents, and he loved being in their orbit and learning from them. 

At Booth, Salgar developed a habit of “first principles” thinking: breaking a problem down into its fundamental truths before looking for a solution. 

“I might be a better software engineer for it,” Salgar says. “Even without writing code for two years, I felt like I developed the habit of rethinking everything from the start, then building it back up.” 

Salgar worked as editor-in-chief of the Booth student newspaper, Chicago Business, and kept a pulse on what was happening around campus. He was fascinated by his economics classes with Austan D. Goolsbee, marketing classes with Sanjay K. Dhar, and financial management classes with Raghuram G. Rajan, all world-class experts in their fields. 

“I feel very lucky for my time in Chicago because there was this grounding in data and facts,” Salgar says. “The school was also very intentional about helping students be better at both strategy and marketing, so it was a good time for me to be there.”

That groundwork has become essential for Salgar’s tenure at Google. His broad skillset has allowed him to move from partnerships at YouTube to a wide range of roles across Google. He’s worked on ads, payments, games, and Google Search, among other parts of the company. 

Search, especially, was important to Salgar. “It’s an incredible product because of the impact you have on the world,” he says. “You get to deeply understand people, because you can see what they’re looking for and understand their needs.”

Democratizing Intelligence

Now, in his role at Google AI, Salgar leverages his nearly two decades of experience across the company to guide AI innovation. AI, he believes, will affect how everyone works and interacts with the world, democratizing intelligence much like YouTube democratized broadcasting and Search democratized access to information. 

Salgar’s part of the AI Innovation and Research team, managing designers, researchers, and product managers, among other employees. His goal is to evolve Google’s core AI models to help make people’s lives better. He believes that there’s still a gap between the potential of AI and how it’s used today—sometimes that means letting users find new ways to use the product, sometimes it means his team innovating to push the technology further. 

“Right now, I’m very focused on improving our platforms and ecosystem,” he says. “How will Chrome evolve? How will the Android operating system evolve? We have glasses that we’ve announced—how do those get better with AI? How do people live better lives as a result?”

Marketing plays a role too, Salgar says. To effectively communicate its value, Google must deeply understand its customers and how they use its products. Marketing is an art and a science, he says. His team can be simultaneously creative and data-informed when promoting and improving a product.

As he innovates at Google, Salgar works to give back to Booth by engaging with students through the James M. Kilts Center for Marketing, where he sits on the steering committee, and, more recently, the Center for Applied AI, where he sits on the advisory council. When he meets with students, he sees that expansions to the school’s programming have helped prepare them well for the intertwined world of business and technology. This includes events like the Kilts Center’s Marketing and Management Forum, which allows students to connect with high-profile alumni in small-group discussions, and CAAI’s Generative Thinking: How AI is Changing Business. Salgar participated in both events, and has led others with the support of the centers, most recently, AI for Product Managers.

“The impact of the school, and the Kilts Center in particular, is remarkable,” Salgar says. “I feel very connected to the center and the folks over there and energized by meeting with students.”

One thing that hasn’t changed since Salgar was at Booth is the emphasis on students first understanding themselves and their own interests. Students must not only develop their skills, but also learn what makes them feel curious and expand their understanding of how the world works.

Even with innovation coming and AI democratizing intelligence, Salgar says students shouldn’t forget soft skills. There will always be new technology, but learning how to manage and work with people can set a technologically proficient professional apart.

“I often tell students that the class I used the most in my first six months of working at Google was Organizational Behavior,” Salgar said. “What incentives do people have? How do I bring people around to my ideas? Those skills were as important as anything else.”

Austan D. Goolsbee is the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics. Sanjay K. Dhar is the James M. Kilts, Jr. Professor of Marketing. Raghuram G. Rajan is the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance.