Sundar Pichai says Google was developing an AI chatbot, admits OpenAI launched first

In 2022, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT, the Sam Altman-led startup already had backing from one of Google’s biggest rivals in the AI space – Microsoft. A report from The New York Times suggests that Google had even issued “code red” over ChatGPT’s popularity, with Pichai telling several groups in the company to focus their efforts and resources to work on commercial AI prototypes and products.

During the conversation, Pichai said, “We knew in a different world, we would’ve probably launched our chatbot maybe a few months down the line. 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.”

The Google CEO went on to say that the company had already been investing a ton of money in AI and was also working on making its own chips and scaling up infrastructure. Talking about ChatGPT’s launch, Pichai said that they were not in a rush to launch their own AI chatbot as Google had a bigger “reputational risk” compared to OpenAI.

He also said that Google’s new AI hub in India, which happens to be the company’s “largest ever AI investment outside the US”, will transform the region as 80 per cent of the data center will be powered by clean energy with subsea cables going in.

Talking of AI, the Google CEO confirmed that the next version of Gemini – dubbed Gemini 3.0 will be released sometime later this year. Rumour had it that the tech giant would be launching the much-anticipated AI model in the coming days, but Google has yet to share the official launch date.