Remember when ChatGPT dropped and everyone acted like Google got KO’d in the first round of the AI fight? Yeah, those were spicy times. Think pieces were flying everywhere—“Has Google lost its magic?” “Is Sundar Pichai asleep at the wheel?” “Should he step down?” Basically, the internet was ready to hand OpenAI the AI championship belt while quietly ushering Google to the back of the innovation line.
Well, Sundar Pichai has finally addressed the noise—and let’s just say, he’s not sweating it.
Speaking on Lex Fridman’s podcast, the Google CEO got real about the drama that followed ChatGPT’s launch and the rumors that he should pack up his office. According to Sundar, he knew the headlines were wild, but he wasn’t panicking. Why? Because behind the scenes, he had a plan—and a pretty major one.
“The main bet I made as CEO,” he explained, “was to make sure we approached everything in an AI-first way.” And by everything, he means laying the groundwork for AGI (artificial general intelligence), responsibly. Not just pushing shiny features, but building tools people genuinely need and use.
While critics were writing think-pieces, Sundar was pulling together Google’s powerhouse AI teams—yes, Brain and DeepMind—and forming what we now know as Google DeepMind. According to him, these moves weren’t reactive—they were already in motion before the public even started counting Google out.
