I never really understood the argument that OpenAI has some technology that Google does not have. That's just not true. The opposite is much more true. And Google's LaMDA is even older than ChatGPT.
Google has to be a long way off monetizing what they have though. If Google was in a position to roll out AI soon I can't imagine why they'd be getting rid of 12,000 people who they know can pass their hiring criteria. They would put some of those engineers to work integrating the AI code into Google's products. Unless Google's AI is so good it can integrate itself I suppose.
The fact they're letting 12,000 people go shows they don't have profitable work for those people. That alone should tell us something about the position of Google's AI strategy right now.