Google CEO Sundar Pichai on why everyone thought Google was ‘way behind’ ChatGPT in AI race

For much of the past two years, Google was widely seen as trailing OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the artificial intelligence race. But CEO Sundar Pichai says that perception was misleading — and the company was quietly laying the groundwork for its biggest AI leap yet. As reported by Business Insider, Speaking on Google’s AI: Release Notes podcast, Pichai said that the outsiders thought Google was slow and lacking behind to respond to the generative AI boom. “If you were on the outside, it would look like we were quiet, or we were behind,” Pichai said. “But we were putting all the building blocks in place, and then executing on top of it.” He also noted that Google’s engineers had been on intense sprint leading up to last month’s launch of Gemini 3 and now ‘some folks need some sleep’.