OpenAI has lost 6% of its users after Gemini 3 launch, report says

Recently, Google introduced Gemini 3, which the company called its “most intelligent” AI model to date. So far, AI leaderboards agree, with Gemini 3 moving ahead of rivals like ChatGPT in the LMArena. Now, OpenAI head Sam Altman has reportedly declared a “code red” at the company in response to increasing pressure from competitors.

The announcement came in the form of a memorandum was leaked wall street journalThe contents of the memo are largely unknown, but the message was simple – OpenAI has some serious competition like Gemini 3 and Anthropic’s Cloud, and the company needs to do something about it,

according to a post on x According to former Googler DD Das, OpenAI has lost about 6 percent of its traffic since Gemini 3 was launched. The data is from SimilarWeb, which says ChatGPT has grown from 203 million average daily visits to 191 million. If that data is accurate, that means OpenAI lost about 12 million people per day last week. Some of this may be due to Thanksgiving, but it’s a big change.

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The problems started months ago with some mistakes by the current champion of AI chatbots. When GPT-5 was released earlier this year, it was immediately Criticized for its less friendly tone Compared to earlier models. The criticism was so intense that OpenAI eventually decided to bring back GPT-4o. The data shows that GPT-5 is more capable than its predecessors, but its lack of personality put off hardcore users who used the bot every day. Also, OpenAI is working hard to balance functionality and security, which it has not particularly well done,

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Despite the criticisms, it seemed that OpenAI’s AI chatbot was destined to maintain its top position among the competitors. However, Google released Gemini 3 in late November to almost universal praiseGoogle’s offerings top almost all benchmark leaderboards. Because of Google’s sheer size and reach, the company has a significant advantage in accessing training data, the lifeblood of AI models.

Competition is also increasing on the enterprise side of things. anthropic Claims over 300,000 business customers By September 2025, which includes some Fortune 500 companies.

These are all possible reasons why OpenAI is in code red; Losing so many visitors is certainly noticeable. Of course, OpenAI is hardly standing still. The company is working on several initiatives, including Signing of infrastructure deals With Nvidia, Oracle and other companies.

In November, Sam Altman wrote a long post on x Addressing fears of an AI bubble and concerns about OpenAI expanding itself.

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Disclosure: Mashable’s parent company Ziff Davis filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in the training and operation of its AI systems.