Google chief Sundar Pichai confirmed the intense internal pressure within the Magnificent Seven firm, widely reported as a ‘code red’, that followed the late 2022 launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, admitting that the smaller rival deserved credit for launching its chatbot first.
Speaking at Salesforce’s annual tech conference in San Francisco, Dreamforce, tech heavyweight Pichai spoke about the period of urgency that reshaped the AI landscape.
Salesforce boss Marc Benioff, moderating the keynote, reminded Pichai and the crowd that Google was undeniably the “absolute leader in AI”, before being overtaken by “this little company in San Francisco called OpenAI”.
OpenAI’s first-move advantage
The Microsoft-backed launch of ChatGPT was seen as a direct challenge to Google’s long-standing dominance in the AI sector.
The New York Times reported at the time that within Google’s operations, management detected and declared a ‘code red’, making Pichai redirect several of his internal teams to speed up AI development.
Despite the panic, Pichai insisted Google was close to launching its own product, telling Dreamforce attendees: “We knew in a different world, we would’ve probably launched our chatbot maybe a few months down the line”.
A bigger risk for Google
He claimed that while a chatbot was being created within Google’s HQ at a similar time, the company’s internal LLM was not ready for public release, having still faced unresolved technical issues that needed fixing to meet Google’s standards.
The key differentiation, according to the Google boss, was the issue of corporate accountability, as Pichai explained that Google was cautious about immediately releasing a competing product because it faced a greater “reputational risk” compared to OpenAI.
He compared the “ChatGPT moment” of November 2022 to other disruptions he had witnessed in the tech space, reminding the audience of when YouTube “came out of nowhere” while Google was building video search in 2006, or when Instagram emerged to dominate photo-sharing following Facebook’s success.
“For me, when ChatGPT launched, contrary to what people outside felt, I was excited because I knew the window had shifted”, Pichai added.
Google’s response arrived much later in March 2023 with the introduction of its own chatbot, initially named ‘Bard’ and later rebranded as ‘Gemini’, which is now an integral part of the company’s AI strategy.