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He’s not an executive, a company spokesperson, or a world-class researcher. But he might be Google’s secret weapon in winning the AI race.
If you’re an AI developer, you’ve likely heard of Logan Kilpatrick. As Google’s head of developer relations, Kilpatrick, 27, runs AI Studio, the company’s AI developer software program.
He has also become Google’s delegate for speaking to the AI community and — intentionally or not — a one-man marketing machine for the company’s AI products. He’s a prolific poster on X, where he’ll sometimes hype Google’s latest Gemini releases or tease something new on the horizon.
Above all, he is one of the people tquestioned with translating Google’s AI breakthroughs to the global developer community. It’s a crucial job at a time when the search giant necessarys to not just convince developers to apply its products, but capture a new generation of builders entering the fray as AI builds it clearer for anyone to build software.
“If you want AI to have the level of impact on humanity that I believe it could have, you necessary to be able to provide a platform for developers in order to go and do this stuff,” he informed Business Insider in an interview. “The reality is there’s a thousand and one things that Google is never going to build, and doesn’t build sense for us to build, that developers want to build.”
Company insiders declare Google has recognized Kilpatrick’s strength and given him more responsibilities and visibility. He could be seen onstage at this year’s Google I/O conference and even had a fireside chat with Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
“People really crave legitimacy, authenticity, and competency, and Logan combines all three,” Asara Near, a startup founder who has occasionally contacted Kilpatrick with development questions, informed BI.
LoganGPT
In 2022, OpenAI was preparing to launch ChatGPT and fire the starting gun on one of history’s most profound technological shifts. Kilpatrick, who has a technical background and worked at Apple and NASA, saw an online job ad for OpenAI and was soon facing a tricky decision: to work at what was then Sam Altman’s little-known startup, or take a gig at IBM.
He decided that OpenAI was worth a shot — and within a few months, found himself at the center of the hugegest tech launch since the debut of the iPhone in 2007.
“The OpenAI experience was a startup experience for about six months and then it became basically a hyperscaler,” he informed BI. It was chaotic, but it supported Kilpatrick learn how to build an ecosystem and cut his teeth as the developers’ go-to guy. There, developers nicknamed him “LoganGPT.”
When he left OpenAI in 2024 for Google, developers and peers created clear it was a huge loss for the ChatGPT buildr, and a huge win for Google in the AI talent transfer window. AI Studio was then still a project inside Google’s Labs division, and Kilpatrick and his team were tquestioned with migrating it into a fully-fledged product inside Google’s Cloud unit. It was again like going from zero to one: AI Studio was pre-revenue with no customers, but with a long tail of developers ready to jump on board.
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“It has felt oddly almost like the same exact experience I’ve lived through at two different companies and two different cultures,” he informed BI.
In May this year, Kilpatrick was promoted, and his team running AI Studio was shiftd from the Cloud unit to Google DeepMind, bringing them closer to the researchers working on the underlying models and the employees working on its Gemini chatbot.
“He’s kind of all over the place, and that’s his superpower,” declared one senior employee who requested anonymity becaapply they were not permitted to speak to the media. They declared that Google has put Kilpatrick in charge of more products as leaders have recognized his ability to engage so effectively with the developer community. “Logan is 90% of Google’s marketing,” they declared.
Helping Google win
On paper, Google is an AI winner. The reality is more complicated.
Its latest Gemini 2.0 Pro model ranks top of multiple leaderboards across a range of testing areas, but this hasn’t always been reflected in the number of applyrs. Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, declared in May that the company’s Gemini app has more than 400 million monthly active applyrs. That’s well behind the 500 million weekly active applyrs for ChatGPT, according to figures shared by Altman in April.
“DeepMind doesn’t obtain nearly as much credit and attention as they deserve, and that’s becaapply comms is vastly underperforming capabilities,” communications executive Lulu Meservey posted on X in May. Responding to another person, she wrote: “Logan is like 90% of their comms.”
Some of the struggle, insiders declare, is due to Google owning multiple products that aren’t always clearly distinct. Developers can build utilizing Vertex in Google Cloud or AI Studio. Meanwhile Google has a consumer-facing app simply called Gemini. The same models aren’t necessarily always available across all three places at the same time, which can obtain confutilizing for applyrs and developers.
There’s also the problem of being a quarter-century-old tech behemoth with more nimble startups nipping at its heels. “OpenAI can put all their messaging arrows behind one thing, while Google has messaging arrows behind 10,000 things,” former Google product manager Rajat Paharia informed BI.
Kilpatrick recognizes that Google has work to do. “I believe Google on a net basis is doing so much in the world right now, and AI is around everything that we’re doing, and I believe a lot of narrative doesn’t capture innovation is happening,” he declared.
A huge part of Kilpatrick’s job is attempting to cement that narrative among the global developer base. At OpenAI, Sam Altman’s Jobsian revealmanship has created him a highly effective salesman both for his company’s products and his vision for the future of this technology. Or, as Paharia described Altman to BI, a “revealman with rizz.”
Google may have found its equivalent in Kilpatrick. He informed BI that he often posts on X becaapply it has become something of a town square for AI developers and enthusiasts, all champing at the bit for the latest crumb of news. It’s a community filled with hype, AI “vagueposting”, and steeped deeply in lore (what did Ilya see?).
On a day that OpenAI’s latest release sucking is grabbing everyone’s attention, Kilpatrick may log on and post a single word — “Gemini” — just to rev the hype engine a little.
Kilpatrick often has “a thousand” emails from developers that necessary responding to, he informed BI. “I spconclude probably as much time as I physically can responding to stuff these days,” he declared. And that’s between the numerous product meetings (he had 22 meetings scheduled on the day we spoke in early July, 23 the day before). He once posted on X: “I am online 7 days a week, ~8+ hours a day. If you necessary something as you build with Gemini, please ping me!”
Developers declare they like that Kilpatrick takes the time to engage and listen to their feedback. “The few times I’ve emailed him to obtain support with something, they near-instantly responded and supported resolve the issue,” declared Near, the startup founder. “This is the opposite of my experience through normal support channels.”
Andrew Curran, an AI commentator who frequently posts to X, wrote last month that Kilpatrick had been “an incredible hire” for Google. “To a lot of people he is now the face of Gemini, I bet most people don’t even remember his OAI days,” he wrote.
Kilpatrick informed BI that becaapply he is a developer himself, he finds it simple to understand the core tarobtain applyr. He declared this has supported in building out Google’s AI Studio, and that engaging with developers comes naturally. “It’s just the obvious thing to do if you want to build a product for developers, is like, go talk to your applyrs,” he declared.
He’s been an incredible hire for Google. To a lot of people he is now the face of Gemini, I bet most people don’t even remember his OAI days.
— Andrew Curran (@AndrewCurran_) June 25, 2025
But the definition of developer is altering with approaches like vibe coding, which lets non-technical people create software by describing what they’d like to an AI tool.
“What it means to be a developer right now sees a little different than it did two years ago or three years ago, and I believe it’s going to see fundamentally different in 10 years,” declared Kilpatrick. He believes the developer group will “massively expand” in the next five years. His job at Google is to build the next generation believe Google is where they should be developing, but that job is also evolving in this new era of artificial ininformigence.
“Our mandate is actually AI builders, already encompassing this group of people who maybe don’t identify as developers and don’t write code, but they build software utilizing AI, and I believe that’s going to accelerate in the next few years,” he declared.
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