OpenAI is reportedly refocusing its attention on ChatGPT after Google’s Gemini 3 gained momentum in benchmarks, social media discussion, and user growth. The move marks a sharp reversal from December 2022, when Google was the company reacting to the sudden rise of ChatGPT.
A new emergency around ChatGPT
On Monday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly declared a “code red” inside the company, according to The Information, which based its report on a leaked internal memo. The goal is to improve ChatGPT, even if that means pushing other work further down the calendar.
In the memo, Altman wrote, “We are at a critical time for ChatGPT.” That sentence frames the issue plainly: OpenAI is not treating ChatGPT as a finished product with a comfortable lead. It is treating the chatbot as the central product that needs immediate attention.
The reported directive affects several projects. OpenAI will push back work on advertising integration, AI agents for health and shopping, and a personal assistant feature called Pulse. Altman also encouraged temporary team transfers and set up daily calls for employees working on improvements to the chatbot.
That kind of internal shift matters because it shows how OpenAI is prioritizing. Advertising, agents, and personal assistant features are not being described as abandoned. But in the moment described by the memo, improving ChatGPT takes precedence.
Gemini 3 changed the pressure
The immediate backdrop is Google’s release of Gemini 3 last month. The model has outperformed ChatGPT on some industry benchmark tests and attracted high-profile praise on social media.
Google released Gemini 3 in mid-November, and the model quickly topped the LMArena leaderboard. LMArena is described as a crowdsourced vibemarking site where users compare two AI models and choose the outputs they prefer.
The launch has produced different reactions, from measured praise to much louder hype. One public example came from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who wrote Sunday on X that he was switching to Gemini 3 after using ChatGPT daily for three years. “I’m not going back,” Benioff wrote. “The leap is insane.”
The competitive pressure is not only about model rankings or online praise. User growth is also part of the picture. OpenAI says ChatGPT has more than 800 million weekly users. Google’s Gemini app, according to Business Insider, grew from 450 million monthly active users in July to 650 million in October.
Those figures are not directly the same kind of measurement, because one is weekly users and the other is monthly active users. Still, the source makes clear that Google is quickly catching up to ChatGPT in user numbers, and that is central to why the “code red” framing matters.
The reversal from December 2022
The situation has an unusual symmetry. In December 2022, Google management declared its own “code red” internal emergency after ChatGPT launched and rapidly gained popularity. At that time, Google CEO Sundar Pichai reassigned teams across the company to build AI prototypes and products that could compete with OpenAI’s chatbot.
Now, three years later, the roles look different. OpenAI is the company reportedly reorganizing work around its flagship chatbot, while Google’s Gemini 3 is the product drawing attention and praise.
This does not mean the AI race has a fixed leader. The source describes an industry that changes quickly, where one company’s apparent advantage can be challenged by another release. The reported memo is best understood in that context: not as a final verdict on ChatGPT, but as a sign that OpenAI sees the current moment as competitive and urgent.
The delays also show how difficult prioritization can become for a company trying to expand in many directions at once. ChatGPT remains the core public product in this story. Advertising, AI agents, and Pulse are all part of a broader product roadmap, but the memo places the chatbot itself at the center of near-term work.
Financial stakes make the race harder
The source also points to financial pressure around OpenAI. Reuters columnist Robert Cyran wrote on Tuesday that OpenAI’s announcement added “to the impression that OpenAI is trying to do too much at once with technology that still requires a great deal of development and funding.”
That criticism appeared on the same day Altman’s memo circulated. OpenAI also announced an ownership stake in a Thrive Capital venture and a collaboration with Accenture. Cyran wrote, “The only thing bigger than the company’s attention deficit is its appetite for capital.”
The financial comparison with Google is important. Google can subsidize its AI ventures through search advertising revenue. OpenAI, by contrast, does not turn a profit and relies on fundraising to survive.
According to The Information, OpenAI is now valued at around $500 billion. The company has also committed more than $1 trillion in financial obligations to cloud computing providers and chipmakers that supply the computing power needed to train and run its AI models.
That creates a difficult backdrop for product decisions. Improving ChatGPT is not only a technical challenge. It is tied to user growth, competitive perception, product planning, and the cost of building and running advanced AI systems.
What comes next
Altman’s memo reportedly said OpenAI plans to release a new simulated reasoning model next week. The model may beat Gemini 3 in internal evaluations, according to the source.
That detail keeps the story open. Google’s Gemini 3 has shifted attention and raised the pressure on ChatGPT, but OpenAI is also preparing another model release. The source describes a continuing back-and-forth cycle of one-upmanship in AI as long as the dollars keep flowing.
For users, the practical takeaway is simple: the major AI companies are still changing priorities quickly in response to each other. For OpenAI, the reported “code red” means ChatGPT is again the main focus. For Google, Gemini 3 has become the release that forced that response.