So if you're in Google leadership, you sleep in the office, right? Not merely because you have a ton of work but also because you're deeply ashamed to be seen in public.
They've also been way behind before, and caught up to being only a little behind. We'll see how things shake out. We're deep in the present but who knows how things will look a year or two in the future.
Google still has several enormous advantages here:
1. Google Books, Youtube and the Google Search index all provide vast amounts of legally acquired training data.
2. They can easy people into AI using the info box. I think this strategy is working even if it does cannibalize their main revenue source. Better than just withering and leaving all of the money to OpenAI/Anthropic. I would not be surprised if Google has significant layoffs due to reduced ad revenue at some point, but I think they'll still be on top.
3. They already have their hooks into people's lives through Gmail, Google Calendar, Android, etc. The only other companies that come close are Apple (but for a much smaller number of people), and Microsoft (but only for business).
The fact that Google's models might be 20% worse, or a few months behind Anthropic's is completely insignificant in comparison to those things.
Is Google trying to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic re: maximally intelligent models? Google seems to be the only one of the three that doesn't pray and self flagellate at the altar of AGI.
No. Demis is busy creating another documentary about how great of a human being he is .
and giving interviews to fawning journalists projecting profundity over his every word.