Google has stormed to pole position in the AI race with the release of Gemini 3 Pro and Nano Banana Pro, but not too long ago, people were saying that it had been caught napping by newer players like OpenAI and Anthropic. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, however, says that the company was always quietly making plans to make a big splash in the AI space.
In a recent conversation, Pichai addressed the perception that Google had fallen behind in artificial intelligence, revealing that what appeared to be hesitation was actually careful preparation. His comments shed light on the strategic decisions that were happening behind closed doors while critics questioned the search giant’s AI ambitions.
“We’ve always had this long-term vision of how we can do ii (bring AI to users),” Pichai explained. “Some of this took time because we have a full stack approach.”
The CEO acknowledged that Google faced initial constraints when the generative AI moment arrived. “When we had to respond to this gen AI moment, we were short on capacity,” he admitted. “We had to invest to ramp up all these things to get it to the scale, so you had a fixed cost around it.”
This capacity challenge, Pichai suggested, created a misleading impression about Google’s AI readiness. “If you were on the outside, it looked like we were quiet or we were behind, but we were putting all the building blocks in place, then executing on top of it,” he said. “We are on the other side now, which is what you can see the pace at which teams are moving forward.”
Pichai’s comments reflect a broader strategic philosophy that has defined Google’s approach to transformative technologies. Rather than rushing to market with incomplete solutions, the company chose to invest in fundamental infrastructure—from custom AI chips like TPUs to massive data center expansions—before launching consumer-facing products. This approach mirrors Google’s historical playbook: building robust technical foundations before scaling publicly, as seen with initiatives like Google Cloud and Android.
The timing of these remarks is particularly significant given Google’s recent product velocity. The company has rapidly iterated on its Gemini models, integrated AI across its product ecosystem from Search to Workspace, and demonstrated capabilities that have shifted industry conversations. What once looked like a cautious response to ChatGPT’s viral moment now appears to have been a calculated ramp-up, with Google leveraging decades of AI research and infrastructure investments to compete at scale. The CEO’s emphasis on being “on the other side now” suggests confidence that the initial capacity constraints and infrastructure buildout have positioned Google for sustained momentum in the AI era.