Google's behind in AI. Its big event this week could change that.

Showing off new tech to customers, the media and investors is key given the perception from analysts and industry observers that Google fumbled its March launch of the "Bard" chatbot, four months after OpenAI debuted ChatGPT and after Microsoft rebooted its Bing search engine with ChatGPT. For most of its two decades, Google has enjoyed a reputation as the undisputed leader in its core business areas. Google Search has no serious competitors, and Google Maps, Gmail, and the Chrome web browser dominate their product categories so deeply that antitrust authorities in multiple countries have launched investigations or filed lawsuits alleging that the company is breaking competition laws. That dominance allowed the company to grow ever bigger, hiring thousands of new employees in the past few years and expanding into new product areas.