Three years ago, when ChatGPT suddenly took the tech world by storm, Google declared a “red status” and Sundar Pichai warned that the rise of OpenAI chatbots could threaten the future of Google search. Now the same scenario is repeated with reversed roles: this time it is Sam Altman who sounds the alarm; Due to Gemini 3’s impressive growth and intense competition from Google’s frontier models, Anthropic and Meta.
OpenAI entered emergency mode
According to the report The InformationIn an internal memo sent yesterday, Altman announced that the company was in a “code red” situation. He told staff that OpenAI needs to “immediately devote more resources to improving ChatGPT” and that some projects—including ad programs—will be delayed until further notice.
Altman wrote in this note:
“We are at a critical time for ChatGPT.”
Google changed the game once again
Two weeks ago, Google released Gemini 3 with a massive rollout—one that’s said to be the fastest-ever deployment of a new model in Google Search, simultaneously activating multiple parts of Google’s billion-strong ecosystem.
This powerful release is a far cry from Google’s situation in 2022; When ChatGPT’s rapid rollout caught him by surprise, Pichai later admitted at Dreamforce:
“In a different world, we probably would have launched our chatbot a few months later. “The product was not ready yet.”
There were plenty of problems after the first Gemini release in December 2023—from wok outputs and inaccurately dated images to the famous disaster where AI Overview advised users to “eat glue and rocks.” But Gemini 3 turned the page this year: strong performance in multimodal reasoning, mathematics, coding, and an increase in monthly users to 650 million in October showed that Google is on the rise again.
Economic concerns and talent migration
Meanwhile, in a separate memo to employees last week, Altman warned of “temporary economic headwinds” and said Google’s acceleration was exposing the “rough side” of competition.
Despite reporting 800 million weekly active users, OpenAI struggles to keep pace with innovation. Part of the challenge also comes from the migration of dozens of senior researchers and engineers to competing companies:
A group called Thinking Machines led by Meera Moratti, former CTO of OpenAI
group to the Superintelligence Lab at Meta under Alexander Wang, former CEO of Scale AI
These events coincide with OpenAI’s effort to raise about 100 billion dollars in capital and increase subscription revenue; A company that expects to earn $10 billion this year from ChatGPT alone.
A new model is coming; But it is not enough
According to Altman’s note, OpenAI will release a new reasoning model next week that has been able to beat Gemini 3 in internal evaluations. However, Altman clarified that ChatGPT still needs “fundamental improvements” in the user experience, which is the main reason for the red status announcement.
History repeats itself, but with reversed roles
In 2022, Google’s “Code Red” caused many teams to spend their vacations responding to ChatGPT. Now, as Altman points out, it’s possible that OpenAI employees will cancel their winter plans in response to Google’s advance.
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