I don't think Google was ever going to be the first to productize an LLM. LLMs say stupid shit - especially in the early days - and would've just attracted even more bad press if Google had been the front runner. OpenAI came along as a small, move-fast-and-break-things entity and introduced this tech to the public, and Google (and others) was able to join the fray after that seal was broken.
Good point, if Google had released the first version of Bard or whatnot as the first LLM it probably would've received some good press but also a lot of "eh just another Google toy side project". I could've seen myself saying that.
