Google VP: AI Should Amplify Teachers, Not Replace Them

Chris Phillips, Google's vice president overseeing maps, earth imagery, and education across the company's global operations, sat down in a Madrid office on a May afternoon to talk about something that keeps many teachers awake at night: whether artificial intelligence will make their jobs obsolete. His answer was direct. "We don't want to replace teachers," he said. "We want to improve their positions and help them maintain that one-to-one human connection."

Phillips arrived at the conversation with a self-deprecating laugh about his Spanish—"Not good," he admitted when asked—but his message about education in Latin America carried no ambiguity. The region is experiencing a collision of hope and anxiety as AI enters classrooms. Teachers wonder if they are being phased out. Parents worry about what their children will actually learn. Administrators scramble to understand how to deploy these tools responsibly. Into this uncertainty, Phillips offered a framework: the teacher must remain in command.

"This is a very important moment right now in education, where responsible deployment of AI for teachers and students is critical," he explained. The challenge in Latin America, he acknowledged, is not purely technical. It is about time and trust. Google is testing training programs delivered in small chunks—ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes at a stretch. The logic is simple: once teachers receive a quick lesson on how to use AI and feel secure doing so, they open themselves to broader applications. "Once they get a rapid lesson on how they can use it and feel confident, that helps unlock more uses," Phillips said.

The conversation shifted when asked about Google Maps and Waze, services that feel almost sentient in their ability to route you around traffic or alert you to accidents ahead. Most people assume algorithms and satellites do all the work. Phillips revealed a different picture. "You would find many humans behind the scenes helping us run the maps," he said. When someone leaves a review of a restaurant or park, that is human input. When a Waze user reports an accident, that is a human voice. The technology amplifies these contributions; it does not replace them. "We use technology to amplify the human voice," Phillips said. "It is not technology alone. It is the intersection and collaboration between humans, authorities, and technology."

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai recently announced the development of AI agents—autonomous systems capable of handling complex tasks without constant human intervention. Phillips sees these as potential lifelines for teachers drowning in administrative work. Grading papers, writing lesson plans, managing schedules: these tasks consume nights and weekends for educators worldwide. AI agents could reclaim that time. But Phillips sounded a note of caution. "It is important that agents do not do what they want," he said. "They must be instructed and directed by what you need them to do for you. The teacher still needs to deeply understand that student."

Phillips himself arrived at Google through an unconventional path. He worked in finance, then at Amazon, then at Pandora during the shift from music downloads to streaming. When asked what advice he would offer a young person in Colombia or elsewhere in Latin America aspiring to a role like his, he did not speak of technical credentials or climbing corporate ladders. Instead, he spoke of curiosity. "I have been very fortunate to be a builder," he reflected. "Whether creating financial products or moving from downloading songs to streaming." His formula for success was spare and human: "Get excited about solving a problem that seemed impossible using technology that many people will now trust."

As AI reshapes education and daily life across the region, Phillips's message amounts to a wager on human judgment. The technology is powerful. But power without wisdom is just noise. The teacher, the reviewer, the driver reporting a hazard—these remain the true engines. Everything else is amplification.