Sam Altman has announced a “code red” at OpenAI to improve Chatbot as the chatbot faces intense competition from rivals.
According to a report from tech news site The Information, the San Francisco-based startup’s chief executive told employees in an internal memo: “We are at a critical time for ChatGPIT.”
OpenAI has been intrigued by the success of Google’s latest AI model, Gemini 3, and is devoting more internal resources to improving ChatGPT.
Last month Altman told employees that the launch of Gemini 3, which has outperformed rivals on various benchmarks, could cause “temporary economic headwinds” for the company. He added, “I expect the atmosphere there to be heated for some time.”
OpenAI’s flagship product has 800 million weekly users, but Google is also highly profitable because of its search business and has ample data and financial resources to spend on its AI tools.
Marc Benioff, chief executive of the $220 billion software conglomerate Salesforce, wrote last month that he had switched allegiance to Gemini 3 and was “not going back” after trying out Google’s latest AI release.
“I’ve used ChatGPT every day for 3 years. Just spent 2 hours on a Gemini 3. I’m not going back. The leap is crazy – logic, speed, images, video… everything is faster and faster. It feels like the world has just changed, again,” he wrote on X.
OpenAI is also delaying advertising in ChatGPT as it focuses on improving the chatbot, which celebrated its third birthday last month.
Nick Turley, head of ChatGPIT, marked the anniversary with a post on X, promising to break new ground with the product.
He wrote: “Our focus now is on making ChatGPT even more efficient, continuing to grow, and expanding reach around the world – while also making it even more intuitive and personal. Thank you for an incredible three years. There’s still a lot to do!”
Despite the lack of cash flow support received by rivals Google, Meta and Amazon, which is a major funder of competitor Anthropic, OpenAI has received substantial funding from the likes of SoftBank Investment Group and Microsoft. OpenAI reached $500bn in its latest valuation, up from $157bn last October.
OpenAI is loss-making and is expected to end the year with annual revenues of more than $20 billion, which Altman expects will grow to “hundreds of billions” by 2030. The startup is committed to accelerating revenue growth after pledging to spend $1.4 trillion on datacenter costs over the next eight years to train and operate its AI systems.
“Based on the trends we’re seeing in how people are using AI and how much they want to use it, we believe the risk of OpenAI not having enough computing power outweighs the risk of having too much,” Altman said last month.
Apple has also responded to increasing competitive pressure in this area by naming a new vice president of AI. Amar Subramaniam, a Microsoft executive, will replace John Giannandrea.
Apple It has been slow to add AI features to its products compared to rivals like Samsung, which have been quick to refresh their devices with AI features.
Subramaniam is joining Apple from Microsoft, where he most recently served as corporate vice president of AI. Prior to this, Subramaniam spent 16 years at Google, where his roles included head of engineering for Gemini Assistant.
Earlier this year, Apple said that AI improvements to its voice assistant Siri would be delayed until 2026.
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