OpenAI Declares 'Code Red' as Google's Gemini 3 Outperforms ChatGPT in Key Benchmarks

OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race

There will be a daily call for those tasked with improving the chatbot, the memo said, and Altman encouraged temporary team transfers to speed up development. The newfound urgency illustrates an inflection point for OpenAI as it spends hundreds of billions of dollars to fund growth and figures out a path to future profitability. It is also something of a full-circle moment in the AI race. Google, which declared its own "code red" after the arrival of ChatGPT, is a particular concern. Google's AI user base is growing -- helped by the success of popular tools like the Nano Banana image model -- and its latest AI model, Gemini 3, blew past its competitors on many industry benchmarks and popular metrics.

OpenAI declares 'Code Red' as Google's Gemini AI outpaces ChatGPT in industry benchmarks, report claims -- Sam Altman sets all hands to the pump on flagship LLM, parks other projects

Google's advancements have apparently gotten Sam Altman nervous. OpenAI chief Sam Altman said in an internal memo that the company is in a "Code Red" status, meaning all other projects will take the backseat in favor of ChatGPT. According to The Wall Street Journal, Altman said in the memo that the company needed to improve its flagship AI LLM's personalization, speed, and reliability, as well as allowing it to cover a wider range of topics. OpenAI popularized the LLM with the release of ChatGPT on December 1, 2022, almost exactly three years ago. However, its competitors have since caught up with their own releases. Its current biggest threat is Google, which just released Gemini 3 in early November, and is baked into most, if not all, of Google's products. Aside from this, Anthropic has also released Claude Opus 4.5 late last month, which is gaining market share among enterprise and business users. There are also several other challengers, like Meta's open-source LLaMA and China's DeepSeek. This tightening competition has made it more crucial for OpenAI to stay ahead of the curve, especially as it continues to burn through capital. Microsoft, which has invested over $13 billion in the startup and holds around 27% of its for-profit OpenAI PBC, reportedly lost $3.1 billion on the AI company in its fiscal first-quarter earnings released in late October. Redmond previously hid its losses on OpenAI as part of its $4.7 billion "other" expenses. Despite not turning a profit since its founding more than 10 years ago, OpenAI has been continuously spending and investing billions of dollars on massive data centers, with its president envisioning a 10-billion-GPU future. It even signed a deal with AMD in early October to secure 6 gigawatts in chips in exchange for 10% of AMD shares. All this talk of billions of dollars has led some experts to ask how it will make good on these investments. Even though OpenAI's rivals have taken strides in advancing their own LLMs, it still leads in several aspects. In fact, the company is expected to drop a new model next week that will challenge Gemini's latest release. However, the WSJ reports that the response to its last major release in August 2025, GPT-5, was less than stellar, with users complaining that it felt clinical and was less capable in math and geography versus previous versions. OpenAI updated the model around three months later to fix these issues.

Code Red at OpenAI: CEO Altman Tells Employees ChatGPT Needs to Improve

ChatGPT turned three on Sunday, but there was little time for celebration at OpenAI. The brand's CEO, Sam Altman, told employees on Monday he was declaring "code red" so the company can refocus on immediate improvements to its chatbot. A company-wide memo from Altman, seen by The Wall Street Journal, tells employees OpenAI will focus on tasks to help improve the day-to-day experience of ChatGPT. It comes after Google's latest Gemini 3 release beat ChatGPT in various benchmarking tests, and competition from other rivals, such as Anthropic, has also proved more of a threat. Altman told employees it would be slowing down work on other initiatives, such as plans to launch ads within ChatGPT. Other delays are reportedly coming to improvements for tools like AI agents built for health or shopping queries. OpenAI may also delay upcoming improvements to its Pulse personal assistant tool, which first launched in September giving users a daily morning update within the ChatGPT app. OpenAI's Nick Turley, Head of ChatGPT, said on X, "Our focus now is to keep making ChatGPT more capable, continue growing, and expand access around the world -- while making it feel even more intuitive and personal." Altman's note says the brand will now have daily calls within the senior team involving those who are contributing improvements to the platform. He also said employees may need to temporarily move around the business to help on other projects. OpenAI reportedly called an internal "code orange" back in October as competition increased, but this new "code red" marks a move to its highest urgency level. It may mean we see improvements to the standard ChatGPT experience continue to flow quickly. OpenAI has been fast at adding new features, but this news may mean we see fewer sweeping changes for the foreseeable and more focus on the core functionality. Soon after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Google reportedly called a "code red" within its Search business leading to the brand pushing ahead with its own chatbot. It was originally called Bard before switching to Gemini branding in 2024. Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Sam Altman issues a 'code red' as ChatGPT's lead narrows

ChatGPT might be the fastest growing consumer app ever but its competitors are closing the gap on the quality of their AI products -- and Sam Altman is feeling the pressure. The OpenAI chief executive issued a "code red" to employees on Monday as part of a push to improve ChatGPT, in a move that could delay some of its other products, reported the Wall Street Journal citing an internal memo. Altman said OpenAI needs to ramp up work on improving the daily experience of its chatbot, including making its personalization features better, speeding it up, making it more reliable, and letting it answer a wider range of questions. The company had already declared a "code orange" to the same effect, but has now upgraded it to red. The company uses yellow, orange, and red to describe the urgency it needs to improve its products, people familiar with the matter told WSJ. ChatGPT is still the most popular chatbot, with 800 million users per week compared with Google's Gemini chatbot which has only 650 million users per month. But Google is catching up on quality. The newest version of Gemini, released in November, outperformed competitors on a series of key industry benchmarks. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff declared after two hours of testing that he wasn't "going back." Analysts say the model's integration into Google's search engine gives it distribution advantages OpenAI can't match. Meanwhile Anthropic's Claude, particularly the Opus 4.5 model, is considered one of the best AI models for coding. Altman's memo reportedly said OpenAI will push back work on other projects to focus on the chatbot. Those include advertising, AI agents for health and shopping, and a personal assistant tool called Pulse. He said temporary team transfers would be encouraged and that the company will hold a daily call for those working on improving ChatGPT. He also wrote that a new OpenAI reasoning model set to be released next week is better than Gemini and that the company is performing well elsewhere. Nick Turley, who is head of ChatGPT at the company, wrote on X on Monday: "Our focus now is to keep making ChatGPT more capable, continue growing, and expand access around the world -- while making it feel even more intuitive and personal."

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI activates 'Code-Red' after Google's Gemini 3 launch. What is it? Check Sam Altman's latest pointers to employees

OpenAI in October declared a "Code Orange" as the ChatGPT maker was facing "the greatest competitive pressure". ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has activated "code-red" as AI race heats up following the launch of Google's new artificial intelligence model Gemini 3. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has declared "code-red" pushing employees to improve ChatGPT. Altman has stressed on making ChatGPT faster, adding new personalized features. The OpenAI top boss wants ChatGPT to be more authentic, accurate and diverse while answering to questions posed by users, according to The Information and the Wall Street Journal report citing an internal memo of the company. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees he was declaring a "code red" to improve ChatGPT and is planning to delay other initiatives, such as advertising, The Information reported on Monday, citing an internal memo. OpenAI hasn't publicly acknowledged it is working on selling ads, but it is testing different types of ads, including those related to online shopping, the report said, citing a person with knowledge of its plans. Earlier in October, Nick Turley of ChatGPT, made an urgent announcement to all employees. He declared a "Code Orange." OpenAI was facing " the greatest competitive pressure we've ever seen," he wrote, according to four employees with access to OpenAI's Slack. For many people, ChatGPT was a better version of Google, able to answer any question under the sun in a comprehensive and humanlike way. OpenAI was continually improving the chatbot's personality, memory and intelligence. But a series of updates earlier this year that increased usage of ChatGPT made it different. The chatbot wanted to chat. Creating a bewitching chatbot -- or any chatbot -- was not the original purpose of OpenAI. Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit and staffed with machine learning experts who cared deeply about AI safety, it wanted to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefited humanity. In late 2022, a slapdash demonstration of an AI-powered assistant called ChatGPT captured the world's attention and transformed the company into a surprise tech juggernaut now valued at $500 billion. The three years since have been chaotic, exhilarating and nerve-wracking for those who work at OpenAI. The board fired and rehired Altman. Unprepared for selling a consumer product to millions of customers, OpenAI rapidly hired thousands of people, many from tech giants that aim to keep users glued to a screen. Last month, it adopted a new for-profit structure. OpenAI is under enormous pressure to justify its sky-high valuation and the billions of dollars it needs from investors for very expensive talent, computer chips and data centers. When ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer product in history with 800 million weekly users, it set off an AI boom that has put OpenAI into direct competition with tech behemoths like Google. Until its AI can accomplish some incredible feat -- say, generating a cure for cancer -- success is partly defined by turning ChatGPT into a lucrative business. That means continually increasing how many people use and pay for it. FAQs Q1. When was OpenAI founded? A1. OpenAI was founded in 2015. Q2. What is Google's new AI model? A2. Google's new AI model is Gemini 3.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declares code red as Google, Anthropic and other rivals moving ahead in AI race: Report

Altman warned of near-term financial and market pressure but said OpenAI remains confident in its long-term AI leadership. OpenAI is reportedly shifting into crisis mode as the competition in the AI industry is growing. CEO Sam Altman has reportedly told employees that the company is entering a code red period with an agenda of refocusing the efforts to strengthen ChatGPT amid the rising pressure from rivals such as Google and Anthropic, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and The Information. As per the report citing the internal memo, Altman stated that several upcoming projects, including the advertising tools, health and shopping-focused agents, and personal assistant known as pulse, will be paused so teams can prioritise improving ChatGPT's speed, reliability, accuracy and personalisation. The report further added that the company will also hold daily check-ins for teams working on upgrades and staff are being encouraged to temporarily join these development groups to accelerate progress. This move comes at a critical time for OpenAI, which is looking for a sustainable business model and facing increasingly aggressive competition. Google, which initially activated its own 'code red' in response to ChatGPT's launch, has quickly gained traction with a growing user base and new AI breakthroughs. Its most recent model, Gemini 3, has outperformed competitors on multiple benchmarks, further giving Google a good position in the AI race. Last month, The Information reported that CEO Sam Altman in his memo, warned employees of Google's latest advances, including the Gemini 3.0 model across Search, Android, and Workspace and also warned about the challenging months ahead. He also acknowledged increased competition from Anthropic, whose Claude assistant is gaining popularity among developers, particularly for coding tasks. He also warned that OpenAI may face short-term financial and market pressures as the AI sector becomes more crowded, despite the fact that the company is still on track to meet its $13 billion revenue target by 2025. However, he stated that despite the challenges, OpenAI has strong fundamentals and is confident in its long-term position in the global AI race.