Sergey Brin is cooking up Google's AI comeback in a California microkitchen

Sergey Brin launched Google from a garage nearly three decades ago. Lionel Hahn/Getty Images; BI Google's AI destiny is being cooked up in a California kitchen. On the second floor of Gradient Canopy, a tent-like structure that rises east of Google's Mountain View headquarters, is a microkitchen filled with many of the typical fixings: coffee beans, grinders, an espresso machine, a fridge. Less typical is the U-shaped formation of desks, used by Google cofounder Sergey Brin and a handful of mission-critical leaders who are steering Google through an AI race it can't afford to lose. Google CEO Sundar Pichai visits the break-turned-war-room several times a week. Employees from other parts of the building sometimes saunter in for an extended snack break, hoping to overhear gossip that could reveal Google's next big move. There are whispers that cofounder Larry Page has been spotted there.