Is Google significantly behind? I would say from a technological perspective, they're very closely trailing or even surpassing OpenAI in many ways; they've built a formidable ChatGPT competitor in Gemini—not to mention they have a huge home court advantage with billions of people on Search, Chrome, Android, and G Suite. If you zoom out a bit, it's not really a fair fight between the two. More likely, Apple and Microsoft win against Google because they use/buy OpenAI.
>>jacobs+(OP)
Technical chops has never been Google's problem. Gemini for all the hype Google has thrown at it, has continued the recurring trend of G not knowing how to win with their product launches.