Director, AI Forward Deployed Engineering · Google Cloud
Brian
Crook
I build AI systems that operate in the physical world — from geospatial intelligence and spatial reasoning to robotics and manufacturing.
I build AI systems that operate in the physical world — from geospatial intelligence and spatial reasoning to robotics and manufacturing.
The next frontier of AI isn't in the cloud — it's in the field, on the factory floor, and embedded in the devices we touch. Physical AI is the convergence I've been working toward for three decades: spatial reasoning, autonomous agents, real-world sensing, and the systems that make intelligence useful in the physical world.
I've been early to every major wave — web-scale ad infrastructure at Disney, mobile location ML and geospatial patents at Verve, semantic knowledge graphs at Cerebra, and now agentic AI at Google. The thread running through all of it has always been the same question: how do we make machines understand the world well enough to act in it?
Leading Google Cloud's Forward Deployed Engineering practice across North America — building proof-of-concept systems that turn AI experiments into production value for companies like Intuit, Adobe, and CVS.
Twenty years building at the edge — geospatial ML, device graphs connecting in-store sales to digital campaigns, and the Nokia/Qualcomm-era foundations of ambient computing. 18 granted patents across mobile location and attribution.
Autonomous systems that reason about and act in the real world. Agricultural robotics, precision sensing, and the agentic infrastructure that makes field intelligence scalable from experiment to production.
"Brian is the most technical CTO I have had privilege to work for. His capacity and genuine interest to dig deep into technical problems and drive technical innovation stunned me from the beginning — because Brian is equally interested and capable of defining and driving company product vision and road maps."Marina AlimanskySenior Program Manager · reported directly to Brian at Verve
"Brian is an outstanding technical and business leader. He showed a lot of leadership and hard work and delivered his promised product to us on time. He also has a great personality and a pleasure to work with."Majd IzadianChief Data Officer, Xendat · Brian's client at Cisco Systems
I'm a creator, a builder, an artist. My dad and grandfather taught me everything — woodworking, metalworking, electronics, and design. The shop in Encinitas is their legacy as much as it is mine.
I taught myself software to carry that vision into the digital world — first with the internet, then mobile, and now AI. What drives me is the convergence: the craft traditions they passed down and the world I've spent thirty years building in software are finally speaking the same language. That's Physical AI. My shop is my lab.
I don't just advise on agentic AI — I run it. Across work, finance, health, and the shop, I've built systems that perceive, reason, and act on my behalf. This is what the agentic era looks like from the inside.
An agentic system that synthesizes signals, manages context, and keeps me operating at director level without losing the detail.
A fully automated CIO triad — skills, workflows, a DuckDB ledger, and a Trading Constitution that governs every decision.
Applying the same agentic architecture to personal health — sensing, synthesizing, and acting on the data that matters most.
Using AI to decompose 3D surfboard models into internal skeleton geometry — closing the loop between digital design and physical craft.
Essays, reflections, and the stories that shaped how I think — from family history to the future of physical intelligence.
AI is transforming agriculture fastest where conditions are controlled. Why the biology wins first, and what that means for the sequencing of everything that follows.
As AI absorbs execution, the bottleneck shifts to judgment. Why this moment rewards those who can direct and build — simultaneously.
What happens when AI leaves the data center and enters the field, the factory, and the farm. Notes from three decades at the edge.
Agentic AI doesn't just lower the cost of building — it eliminates the translation layer between intention and execution. Why this changes the fundamental psychology of entrepreneurship.
How my family's legacy in wooden boat construction found its way into CNC-cut fins and hollow boards shaped in Encinitas.
He took me to the Moscone Computer Show in San Francisco in the early '80s. He was the bridge between the shop and the screen.
In the words of Ernie Crook — my grandfather, founder of Crook's Boats in 1947. Written at his drafting table, at 83 years old.
My grandfather founded Crook's Boats in Castro Valley in 1947 — a full manufacturing shop where hulls were designed at a drafting table, machined by hand, and launched into the Bay. My father carried that forward. Growing up, the smell of sawdust and the sound of a lathe were as familiar as anything.
Somewhere between learning to sand a hull and being dragged to the Moscone Computer Show in San Francisco in the early '80s, two worlds collided. My first real job out of UCSB was breadboard work — hands-on electronics that pulled me toward computer science and never let go.
On my mother's side, the land. Her father farmed, and the family's roots ran deep into agriculture — the soil, the seasons, the patience required to grow something. My mother grew up on a vineyard. I've spent enough time making wine to understand terroir: the way fruit, environment, and time converge into something that couldn't have come from anywhere else.
I've always needed to touch what I dream. The shop makes that literal. What's new is that compute is making it possible everywhere else too — and that gap between vision and something you can hold is closing faster than anyone expected.
I'm interested in anything at the intersection of Agentic AI, Physical AI, manufacturing, and spatial intelligence. If you're building something cool — even a fun 3D printed jig for the shop — I'd love to hear about it.