Cyber godfather Tibo reveals: Google made ChatGPT a year earlier, but still didn’t dare to release it!

OpenAI Codex lead Tibo Sottiaux said he worked on LMChat at Google and DeepMind, an internal chatbot that was already close to what later became ChatGPT.

Google did not launch the project, reportedly due to concerns about impact on its search business and cautious internal approval processes.

The revelation has renewed criticism that Google missed an early generative AI opportunity.

It also highlights how protecting legacy businesses can slow the productization of new technologies.