Google was never really late. Where people perceived Google to have dropped the ball was in its productization of AI. The Google's Bard branding stumble was so (hilariously) bad that it threw a lot of people off the scent.
My hunch is that, aside from "safety" reasons, the Google Books lawsuit left some copyright wounds that Google did not want to reopen.
My hunch is that, aside from "safety" reasons, the Google Books lawsuit left some copyright wounds that Google did not want to reopen.