Google executives hosted the company’s I/O developer conference this week, an annual ritual that has in recent years centered on artificial intelligence. With OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing chatbot seen as challenging Google’s search domination, Google CEO Sundar Pichai seemed intent on projecting the message that his company is still the leader in AI—and is speeding up deployment of the technology. 

Google’s own chatty large language model, Bard, was the headliner, and it is now publicly available in 180 countries….