Andrew Ng says he brainstorms work ideas by talking to AI in voice mode while driving.
Google Brain’s founder said at the Masters of Scale Summit 2025 in October that he uses AI as a “brainstorming companion more than even my friends know.”
“I often talk to the AI while driving,” he said during the discussion. Published on Wednesday.
Ng said he rarely sticks to a single chatbot. To brainstorm effectively, he rotates through different models and notes their contrasting strengths. When it comes to coding, I prefer tools like Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex.
He added that the longer you have a conversation with the model, the better the response.
“AI is very smart, but it’s difficult to bring in context,” Ng says. “A lot of it isn’t, ‘Let me tell you something and then give me an idea.’
Rather, it’s important to have “long-term conversations” with your models, to discuss ideas and provide feedback.
“I finish my work while driving,” Ng said. Once you arrive at your destination, ask the AI to summarize the interaction and forward it to your team.
Earlier this year, Ng said that “lazy prompting,” giving AI a minimal amount of context or direction, could actually be a more efficient approach.
“Sometimes it’s faster to be lazy and ignore quick and inaccurate prompts and see what happens,” Ng said on the X show in April. “Most LLMs are smart enough to understand what you want them to understand and suggest modifications, so you don’t have to explicitly tell them.”
“Add details to prompts only when necessary,” he added.
How leaders are using AI at work
More and more executives are sharing how they are using AI and incorporating it into their daily workflows.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in June that the company uses AI to add a subtle touch to code and build web apps.
“I’m excited to see how easy it is to do that now,” Pichai said. “Things have come a long way since the early days of coding.”
Box CEO Aaron Levie told Business Insider in a September report that the company uses a mix of AI tools depending on the task. Use ChatGPT or Perplexity for research, switch to Cursor when you want to quickly prototype new product features, and use Box AI when you want to work directly with data.
In the same report, Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel told Business Insider that the company used AI to hone its public speaking skills. Vogel said he will upload recordings of keynote speeches to the model and LLM will provide specific feedback, such as flagging distracting hand movements.
