Google was referring to its dominant position in the search market. In the early 2000s, several search engines existed in the market, but Google now has 90 per cent of the market. It is also not the pioneer of Android, though it purchased it at an early stage. At that time, the market was dominated by Blackberry and Nokia custom OS (operating systems), but today, Android has the largest mobile OS market share.

In the email, Pichai reportedly remained optimistic and said that AI has “gone through many winters and springs”, adding that the “most important thing we can do right now is to focus on building a great product and developing it responsibly.”

Following Google Bard’s patchy launch last week, Google employees called the rollout rushed and botched. Google was feeling massive pressure from Microsoft, which is leveraging OpenAI’s new-gen ChatGPT technology into its Bing search engine and Edge browser.