Robby Stein
Robby Stein is VP of Product at Google, where he oversees the core products of Google Search—including the new AI Overviews, AI Mode, search ranking, Google Lens, and more. Previously, he led consumer products at Instagram, where he and his teams built Stories, Reels, Close Friends, and other key features now used by billions.
Strategy & Positioning Skills
Growth in mature products is often found by introducing new formats that capture expansionary user curiosity rather than attempting to replace foundational habits.
"AI is expansionary, and so there's actually just more and more questions being asked and curiosity that can be fulfilled now with AI. And so that's where you get the growth. All the core Google search..."
Adopting successful industry format primitives is an act of user-centricity, as withholding proven improvements is a disservice to your customers.
"Not every great thing is going to be invented by you. Facebook probably created the modern feed, but there's a feed for every single product. At the end of the day, you're just robbing your user base..."
Traditional search habits remain durable because they solve specific foundational needs, while AI acts as a growth driver for more complex and exploratory queries.
"The core Google search isn't really changing, in my opinion. We're not seeing that people come to search for just ridiculously wide set of things. They want a specific phone number, they want a price..."