An OpenAI employee claims Google had a ChatGPT-style chatbot ready nearly a year before OpenAI’s launch but held it back to protect its search business.
An OpenAI employee has claimed that Google built a ChatGPT-like chatbot before OpenAI’s own AI assistant went public, but chose not to release it over concerns that it could hurt the company’s core search business.
A Surprising Claim From an Ex-Google Employee
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT nearly four years ago, it changed the direction of the artificial intelligence industry almost overnight. The chatbot’s ability to hold human-like conversations drew global attention and pushed rival companies, including Google, to accelerate their own AI work.
Now, a claim from OpenAI employee Thibault “Tibo” Sottiaux suggests Google may have had similar technology ready well before ChatGPT ever reached the public.
What Sottiaux Said
Sottiaux, who previously worked on Google’s AI team, was responding to a post on X by AI engineer Cheng Lou. Lou had referenced an interview in which Google veteran Jeff Dean reportedly said the company had built an internal conversational AI before ChatGPT, but felt it did not add enough value over traditional Google Search to justify releasing it publicly.
Sottiaux confirmed this from his own experience. He said he was part of the team that built a chatbot similar to ChatGPT nearly a year before OpenAI’s version came out, referring to it by an internal codename, “LMChat,” before it was renamed.
- Sottiaux says he personally worked on the project
- The chatbot reportedly existed close to a year before ChatGPT’s public debut
- It was known internally by the codename “LMChat” before being renamed
Why Google Reportedly Held Back
According to Sottiaux, Google’s leadership was hesitant to release the chatbot because of its possible effect on the company’s core search business. The concern was that a conversational AI tool could reduce how often people used traditional Google Search.
“Google was too nervous to release it, and DeepMind was blocked from shipping products that could disrupt Google,” Sottiaux wrote, adding, “I think about this a lot.”
Google’s AI Track Record Before ChatGPT
Before ChatGPT arrived, Google was already regarded as one of the leading companies in artificial intelligence research. It housed powerful AI divisions such as Google Brain, DeepMind, and Google Research, along with the computing infrastructure needed to train large-scale models.
Over the years, Google had developed several notable AI systems, including LaMDA, PaLM, and Meena. However, most of these projects remained in experimental stages or were never rolled out as consumer-facing products.
Reports at the time pointed to a mix of reasons for this caution, including concerns about factual accuracy, safety risks, and the potential impact on Google’s advertising-driven search business.
How ChatGPT Changed the AI Race
ChatGPT’s launch reshaped the competitive landscape almost immediately. The chatbot reportedly attracted one million users within five days and crossed 100 million users within two months. Its user base has since grown to approximately one billion monthly active users.
Google’s own chatbot, Gemini, has been catching up and is reported to be nearing 950 million monthly active users, putting the two companies in close competition.
Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic are now among the companies leading the ongoing race to build more capable and widely used AI systems.
Conclusion
If Sottiaux’s account is accurate, it suggests Google had the technical capability to launch a ChatGPT-style product well before OpenAI did, but internal caution about disrupting its search business held it back. That hesitation may have given OpenAI the opening it needed to become the face of the modern AI chatbot boom, a lead Google is now working to close with Gemini.
Frequently Asked Questions
According to OpenAI employee Thibault Sottiaux, who previously worked on Google's AI team, Google had built a similar chatbot internally nearly a year before ChatGPT was publicly released.
Sottiaux claims Google was concerned that releasing such a chatbot could reduce reliance on traditional Google Search, its main source of revenue, so the project was held back internally.
ChatGPT currently has around one billion monthly active users, while Google's Gemini is reported to be approaching that figure with about 950 million monthly active users.
