Google will easily be able to catch up if they really want to focus on the problem. They have ALL of the computing power and resources to do so. The key to GPT-3.5+ is RLHF. That's what takes some effort, but it would not be difficult for Google to this now that Bard is out. Bard is the training ground for RLHF, so you will continue to see major improvements as people give the system feedback.