When a little-known startup called OpenAI released its artificial intelligence chatbot, it was a seminal moment that kicked off the current era of AI.
But what was the “ChatGPT moment” like for Google, a long-established Big Tech company that had for years been working on its own AI products?
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, discussed his reaction the release of ChatGPT during a talk Thursday at Dreamforce, Saleforce’s annual technology event.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff asked Pichai about what it was like for Google, which he described as the “absolute leader in AI” at the time, when “this little company in San Francisco called OpenAI emerges with this product ChatGPT.”
Pichai said Google had already made significant progress on AI products, including an internal version of a chatbot.
“But you’re right, credit to OpenAI, they put it out first,” he said.
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, it had the backing of Microsoft, a rival of Google, and was largely seen as a major challenge to Google’s dominance in the AI space. The New York Times reported that management at Google issued a “code red”, and Pichai redirected several teams to focus on AI efforts.
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In the conversation with Benioff, Pichai compared the moment to others he had witnessed in the consumer internet space. For instance, when Google was working on video search in 2006 and YouTube “came out of nowhere,” or when Facebook was seeing popularity with photos in its feed, and then Instagram appeared. (Google later bought YouTube, and Facebook bought Instagram.)
“We knew in a different world, we would’ve probably launched our chatbot maybe a few months down the line,” Pichai said. “We hadn’t quite gotten it to a level where you could put it out and people would’ve been OK with Google putting out that product. It still had a lot of issues at that time.”
He also said that Google had already been heavily investing in AI, from its research teams to producing its own chips to infrastructure, and that it was already well-positioned when ChatGPT was released.
“For me, when ChatGPT launched, contrary to what people outside felt, I was excited because I knew the window had shifted,” he said.
Shortly after ChatGPT’s launch, Pichai said Google was not immediately releasing a chatbot competitor because it had greater “reputational risk” than OpenAI.
In March 2023, Google released its chatbot. It was initially called Bard and later renamed to Gemini.
