‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton says Google is ‘beginning to overtake’ OpenAI: ‘My guess is Google will win’
Geoffrey Hinton, a renowned figure in the field of artificial intelligence and often referred to as the “Godfather of AI,” recently expressed his surprise at how long it took Google to catch up in the AI race against OpenAI. In an interview with Business Insider, Hinton, who previously worked at Google Brain, noted that Google’s latest advancements, particularly the launch of Gemini 3 and the Nano Banana Pro AI image model, have positioned the tech giant as a formidable competitor, potentially surpassing OpenAI’s offerings. Hinton remarked, “I think it’s actually more surprising than it’s taken this long for Google to overtake OpenAI,” highlighting the significant strides the company has made since its earlier hesitations following the controversial launch of Microsoft’s “Tay” chatbot in 2016.
Google’s recent successes have not only garnered praise but have also positively impacted its stock, with shares rising amid reports of a potential billion-dollar deal to supply Meta with AI chips. Hinton emphasized that Google’s ability to produce its own chips is a crucial advantage, coupled with its extensive resources, including a wealth of data and a robust team of researchers. He stated, “Google has a lot of very good researchers and obviously a lot of data and a lot of data centers. My guess is Google will win.” This shift in momentum comes after a period where Google had to tread carefully, having faced backlash from prior AI rollouts that included problematic outputs and inaccuracies.
Hinton’s insights come at a significant time as he also announced a $10 million CAD donation from Google to establish the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Toronto, which will be matched by the university. This initiative aims to honor Hinton’s legacy and support the recruitment of scholars dedicated to pioneering research in AI. Since leaving Google in 2023, Hinton has voiced concerns about the societal risks posed by AI, such as its potential to outsmart humans and displace jobs. His contributions to AI have been recognized globally, culminating in a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, Hinton’s perspective remains influential, underscoring the balance between innovation and ethical considerations in the rapidly advancing field of artificial intelligence.
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AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton
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Geoffrey Hinton said he was surprised it took Google this long to catch up in the AI race.
Google
received significant praise for its release of Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro models.
Hinton, an AI pioneer who previously worked at Google Brain, said the tech giant is now likely to surpass OpenAI.
The “Godfather of AI” thinks it’s about time that Google caught up in the AI race.
“I think it’s actually more surprising than it’s taken this long for Google to overtake OpenAI,”
Geoffrey Hinton
, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto who previously worked at Google Brain, told Business Insider in a Tuesday interview.
Google is coming off the heels of its widely praised launch of
Gemini 3,
an update that some in tech said elevated the giant beyond OpenAI’s GPT-5. Google’s
Nano Banana Pro
AI image model has also proven to be a hit.
Three years after Google reportedly declared a “code red” after the release of ChatGPT, recent reports indicate it’s now
OpenAI that is sounding the alarm.
“I think that right now they’re beginning to overtake it,” Hinton said of Google’s position relative to OpenAI.
On top of the successful launch of its latest AI model, shares of Google rose on reports that it might broker a billion-dollar deal to supply Meta with its own AI chips.
Making its own chips is a “big advantage” to Google, Hinton said.
“Google has a lot of very good researchers and obviously a lot of data and a lot of data centers,” he said. “My guess is Google will win.”
Hinton, who helped pioneer AI research during his time at Google Brain, said that the search giant was once at the forefront of AI but held back.
“Google was in the lead for a long time, right?” he said. “Google invented transformers. Google had big chatbots before other people.”
Google was cautious, Hinton said, in the wake of Microsoft’s disastrous 2016 launch of its short-lived
“Tay” AI chatbot
, which it took offline after it posted incredibly racist tweets.
“Google, obviously, had a very good reputation and was worried about damaging it like that,” he said.
Google CEO
Sundar Pichai
has previously said that the company held back on releasing its chatbot.
“We hadn’t quite gotten it to a level where you could put it out and people would’ve been okay with Google putting out that product,” Pichai said earlier this year. “It still had a lot of issues at that time.”
In the past, the company has had some shaky rollouts. Just last year, Google had to
pause its AI image generator
after some users complained that results showing historically inaccurate images of people of color were too “woke.” Its initial AI search overviews generated nonsensical advice, such as
putting glue on pizza
to prevent cheese from falling off.
Google just made a big university donation in Hinton’s honor
Hinton spoke to Business Insider ahead of the announcement that Google was donating $10 million CAD to help establish the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Toronto. The university, where Hinton split his time while at Google, said it would match Google’s gift.
Hinton left Google in 2023, citing concerns about AI’s development. Since then, he has repeatedly spoken out about the
risks that AI poses to society
, ranging from the potential to outsmart humans to displacing jobs. In 2024, Hinton was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.
“Geoff’s work on neural networks — spanning his time in academia and his decade here at Google — laid the foundation for modern AI,” Google said in a statement. “This chair honors his legacy and will help the university recruit visionary scholars dedicated to the same kind of curiosity-driven, fundamental research that Geoff championed.”
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