Vinton Cerf to retire from Google after more than 20 years

Vinton Cerf, the 83-year-old internet pioneer, is stepping down from his role as Google’s chief internet evangelist next week. His retirement marks the conclusion of a tenure at the company that has lasted more than 20 years, with Cerf serving as a vice president since 2005. Cerf, who co-architected the networking protocols that became the internet alongside Robert Kahn, began developing TCP/IP—the basic set of rules that lets different computer networks talk to each other—in the 1970s. During a panel discussion, UC Berkeley professor Dave Patterson celebrated Cerf’s career and recalled his distinct personal style, noting that Cerf wore a shirt and tie as a graduate student in the 1970s. Cerf confirmed this, explaining that he wore a vest and wanted to stick out by dressing differently rather than having long hair.

The panel also featured other computer scientists, including François Chollet, the creator of Keras and co-founder of Ndea; John Ousterhout, the creator of Tcl and co-founder of Electric Cloud; and Matei Zaharia, co-founder of Databricks.

Looking forward, Cerf argues that the rise of the agentic model of AI—AI software that can act autonomously and coordinate with other software—will force tech companies back toward standardized protocols. He asserts that the interaction of multiple autonomous agents from various sources will require strict interoperability and formal standards, rather than relying on natural language. Cerf warns that using natural language like English for machine-to-machine communication introduces dangerous ambiguity, comparing it to a telephone game where a message whispered through 10 people becomes completely distorted by the end.

According to Cerf, formal standards are necessary to ensure precision when autonomous systems coordinate. “I don’t think English is going to be the best choice. There’s a flexibility in it, but there’s ambiguity, and I think precision for interagent interaction is going to be very, very important. An agent really needs to be sure the other agent understands what it is that they just agreed to do together,” said Cerf, Google chief internet evangelist.

Why it matters

Cerf’s departure marks the end of a foundational era in tech, but his focus on the necessity of standardized protocols for AI agents suggests the next phase of infrastructure will mirror the early internet’s development.