Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, spoke at Salesforce’s annual technology event Dreamforce and shared something that anyone would call an ‘Ahh moment.’ According to him, Google built a chatbot before ChatGPT existed. At the time, Google didn’t realise the full potential of AI chatbots, and OpenAI came up with ChatGPT, which suddenly became a big buzz. So, what happened in the background? Why is Google’s Gemini late to the market? What else did Pichai say? For all that, learn more.
Google’s Early AI Work
According to Sundar Pichai, Google has had its chatbot for many years, but only for internal work. Back then, AI technology wasn’t that advanced, so Google had to keep to itself. As a matter of fact, a Google engineer once claimed that a chatbot was “sentient”, meaning alive or conscious. The concept became famous; however, it isn’t true.
Why Google Didn’t Launch It
He explained how Google, despite having a chatbot, never made it public before OpenAI did. He said the tech was fairly new and had a lot of issues and potential risks. Even if Google risked releasing it, people wouldn’t have been happy with the quality.
“In a different world, we might have launched it a few months later, but it just wasn’t ready yet.”
Sundar Pichai’s reaction to ChatGPT was excitement, not frustration.
OpenAI Got There First
Sundar Pichai gave credit to OpenAI for coming up with ChatGPT first. Enunciating more on that, he said that sometimes another company can go public with the idea that others are working too. That’s how things work in the tech world, he said.
He gave examples to give a perspective on what he said:
- In 2006, Google was working on video search; however, YouTube suddenly gained immense popularity.
- And Facebook was popular for photos, and then Instagram came out of the blue and became very famous.
Google’s AI Strategy
Pichai explained that Google is working on AI with a “full-stack approach.” Google is working on everything from the bottom to the top, like:
- Google is building its own hardware chips to reduce its dependency on others.
- Building top research teams includes Google Research, Google Brain, and DeepMind.
- And building robust AI models with advanced features added, from time to time.
What Google Is Doing Now
Sundar Pichai also credited Google’s foundation for helping the company quickly catch up with the AI boom. Right now, Google is working on:
- Both Google Brain and DeepMind are merged into one.
- Constant advancements are being made to its AI model, Gemini.
- Google is also working on Gemini 3.0, set to be released later this year.
“I couldn’t be more excited,” he concluded.
Krishna kumar
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