The important thing for Google is to be part of the short list right now before adoption crystalizes. Over the next year or two a large chunk of early (late?) adopters will firmly commit to one (or maybe two) vendors for their generative AI and those decisions will be sticky.

So now is the time to do whatever it takes to get into the conversation ... which Google successfully did I think.

Welcome to IT.... no seriously, this is how a lot of executives behave in IT.