> Then why have they been lagging behind OpenAI and Anthropic for most of the last few years, and only briefly been at the frontier?

Because it's not an existential battle for Google. If OAI or Anthropic disappear from the absolute frontier for ~8 months the news cycle and churn will diminish them to the second rate. Google is processing near 4 quadrillion tokens every month, that's - I'm sure - significantly more than OAI or Anthropic, because Google is interested more so in their flash models and getting these competitive, which they are.