OpenAI Declares “Code Red” as Google and Anthropic Threaten ChatGPT’s Dominance
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is raising the highest level of alarm internally to fend off growing pressure from Anthropic and especially Google. In favor of improvements to ChatGPT, numerous planned products are being put on hold for the time being.
Change of strategy: Code Red at OpenAI
The race for dominance in the field of artificial intelligence continues to heat up. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has now declared a so-called “Code Red” internally. This move signals the highest level of urgency within the tech company, similar to what Google did when it launched ChatGPT three years ago. The goal is to radically focus all available resources on improving the flagship product ChatGPT.
The background for this drastic step is the massive competitive pressure from competitors such as Google and Anthropic, whose latest models are increasingly putting pressure on the AI pioneer and previous market leader in terms of technology and user popularity. In an internal memo, Altman instructed the workforce to immediately focus on increasing the speed, reliability and personalization of the chatbot. To achieve this goal, daily status meetings were scheduled for the development teams.
Employees from other departments should be temporarily transferred to the relevant core areas in order to immediately eliminate bottlenecks. The urgency makes it clear that the technological lead that OpenAI has achieved in recent years is now classified by management as being at acute risk.
Avoid new products
Like that Wall Street Journal citing internal documents first reported by The Information were made public, this focus has far-reaching consequences for the company’s product pipeline. In order to free up capacity for the core product, various planned projects will be postponed indefinitely:
- Pulse: A planned personal AI assistant that would proactively accompany users throughout the day and provide morning updates.
- Advertising products: The introduction of complex ad formats is being postponed in order not to endanger the user experience.
- AI agents: Automation tools for shopping and healthcare tasks are on pause, even though this market is considered lucrative.
Gemini 3 and Opus set standards
This strategic realignment comes as a direct response to the competition’s recent successes. Google released its Gemini 3 model last month, which outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-5, released in August, in relevant industry benchmarks. Anthropic was also able to overtake OpenAI in important performance tests with its Opus 4.5 model, especially when processing long text contexts.
The development of user numbers is particularly critical for OpenAI: While ChatGPT is still leading with over 800 million weekly users, Google was able to increase the number of its monthly active users for Gemini from 450 million to 650 million between July and October. Analyzes by Similarweb also indicate that users now spend more time with Gemini than with ChatGPT, as the Google model is often perceived as more up-to-date and multimedia-versatile.
Financial constraints
Another factor for the unrest is likely to be the financial situation. OpenAI has to invest enormous sums in data centers and, according to its own forecasts, is aiming for sales of around 200 billion dollars (around 172 billion euros) by 2030 in order to become profitable. In contrast to the highly profitable search engine giant Google, the startup is dependent on constant rounds of financing and the partnership with Microsoft.
A loss of technological leadership could have a serious impact on future valuations. Despite the current challenges, the management level is fighting. Altman announced in the memo that a new “Reasoning Model” will be published next week, which is superior to Google’s Gemini when it comes to complex logical tasks.
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