- By Prateek Levi
- Fri, 10 Apr 2026 04:18 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Google's current chief, Sundar Pichai, is making the headlines right now for hitting back against the notion that the company actually missed the early AI chatbot wave but says that it was a decided move to not put out the technology first in the market. This was revealed in an episode on a podcast with John Collins, where Pichai expressed that the systems required to run modern-day chatbots had already been developed by the company, but keeping safety and quality issues in mind, the conglomerate decided to take a calculative pause.
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Speaking on a scandal that took place in 2022 where former Google engineer Blake Lemoine was involved, Pichai claimed that Google already had prototypes of what people are using right now in tools like ChatGPT and that Google's chatbot was known as LaMDA, which was in essence an earlier version of modern-day chatbots. However, Pichai emphasised that the decision was not an instant one but taken after considering the technological lag.
Google Had The Tech But Chose Caution
Sundar Pichai revealed that Google had already built a conversational AI internally, but it wasn’t ready for public release. Despite the above developments, it was not producing any response that could be deemed safe and consistent because it relied heavily on inadequate reinforcement learning through human feedback (RLHF).
He highlighted that Google maintains stricter internal quality benchmarks, especially for search-driven products, which made an early launch unlikely. His comments suggest that while competitors were moving faster, Google prioritised trust and safety over speed at that stage.
What happened during the Lemoine scandal?
The Lemoine controversy was also discussed, who is known for publicly disclosing that Google's chatbot had become sentient. Exposing transcripts of the conversation he had with the chatbot, which Lemoine claimed had feelings, concerned him. Google has denied these claims, and this was backed by many AI scientists, who have asserted that LaMDA was not sentient but actually a very sophisticated AI suite. Pichai steered away from taking any side where the sentience debate was concerned; rather, he showcased the level of technology that the tech giant had achieved in terms of AI systems.
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, its viral growth reportedly pushed Google into crisis mode. As per The New York Times, the moment was internally labelled a “code red”, with Sundar Pichai restructuring teams across AI, product, and safety to fast-track the company’s response.
The scale did not just come by itself overnight. The collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI contributed significantly to achieving wider reach as well as propelling ChatGPT into the limelight more quickly.
Google’s Early Entry Took Flak; Then Came a Change
Google joined the competition with its entry known as 'Google Bard' at the beginning of 2023, but the initial version was subject to backlash because of mistakes and haste. The company eventually took a step back and worked on refining its approach and repositioned the product as Google Gemini, now central to its AI ambitions.
Pichai has since framed the delay as a deliberate call. He pointed to past patterns where Google entered late but still scaled effectively, including its move into online video that ultimately tied into YouTube.
Three years later, his position remains steady: Google wasn’t late; it was waiting until the tech was ready by its own standards, at least this is what the tech giant claims.