It's safe to say Google has spent the last year one step behind the competition when it came to AI. Despite its status as internet royalty — along with a brain trust seemingly geared perfectly to lead the charge into LLMs and machine learning — Google found itself caught off-guard by the immediate popularity of ChatGPT. And as Microsoft has cemented a cozy relationship with OpenAI, right down to a near-successful total acqui-hire during Sam Altman's brief firing in November, Google has continued to try to make a play at similar games.
