Exploring the theory of a delayed AI timeline and the powerful Google chatbot that stayed behind the curtain.
It feels like you can’t go a day without hearing about a new AI tool. From ChatGPT writing poems to Gemini planning your vacation, we’re living in a full-blown AI moment. But what if I told you this whole thing could have kicked off three years earlier? It’s a fascinating thought experiment that points to a potentially delayed AI timeline, all because of a powerful chatbot Google built and then kept under wraps.
Have you ever heard of Meena? Probably not. Back in 2019, while the world was blissfully unaware of the chatbot revolution to come, a team at Google was already working on something special. Meena was a conversational AI, an advanced large language model (LLM) that could chat about… well, pretty much anything. Google even published a blog post about it, calling it a step “towards a conversational agent that can chat about anything.” It was smart, it was nuanced, and it was eerily similar to the tech that would later power the first versions of ChatGPT.
And then… nothing. Google published the research, but Meena never became a product. It stayed in the lab. Three years later, in late 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT and the world changed overnight. This begs the question: what was happening in those three years? If Google had a Meena, and it was as capable as early ChatGPT, did they cause a delayed AI timeline by not releasing it?
Understanding the Delayed AI Timeline
Imagine it’s 2019. Instead of just reading a whitepaper, you can log on and chat with Meena. The initial boom of AI-generated content, API integrations, and public fascination would have started then. By the time 2022 rolled around, we wouldn’t be marveling at an AI passing the bar exam; we’d be dealing with the next generation of its capabilities and challenges.
If we had that three-year head start, our current 2025 reality could look completely different.
* AI Integration: Tools like Gemini and ChatGPT might be even more deeply and seamlessly integrated into our daily software.
* Problem Solving: We’d be three years further into solving complex issues like AI hallucinations, bias, and safety concerns.
* Public Awareness: Society would have had more time to adapt to the implications of advanced AI, from the job market to education.
It’s not a stretch to say that the entire landscape would be more mature. The groundwork for regulation, ethical guidelines, and creative uses would be far more established. Instead, we’re in a frantic sprint, with everyone trying to catch up to the pace set by OpenAI.
Why Did Google Wait and Delay the AI Timeline?
So, if Google was sitting on this powerful technology, why did they hold back? While we can only speculate, there are a few likely reasons.
First, big companies are often cautious. Google’s entire empire is built on the authority and reliability of its search engine. Releasing a chatbot prone to making things up—what we now call “hallucinations”—could have seriously damaged the trust they’d spent decades building. It’s a classic case of the “innovator’s dilemma,” where established companies are hesitant to embrace new technology that could disrupt their existing, profitable models.
Second, the ethical considerations were huge. In 2019, the conversation around AI safety and potential misuse was far less mainstream. Google may have decided the risks of releasing such a powerful tool into the wild were too great without stronger guardrails in place. They were likely working on these problems internally, but the public-facing product was a step they weren’t ready to take. Meena, in fact, laid the groundwork for the safety systems and capabilities now found in their current models like Gemini.
Ultimately, OpenAI’s decision to release ChatGPT to the public was a bold, disruptive move that forced everyone else’s hand. It kickstarted the timeline we’re on now. We’ll never know what that alternate, accelerated path would have looked like, but it’s fascinating to think about the AI we almost had, years ahead of schedule. Was Google’s caution a missed opportunity or a responsible choice? Maybe a little bit of both.