OpenAI postpones advertising plans to focus on improving ChatGPT

OpenAI seems to be extremely concerned about the latest advances made by Google in the AI ​​arena, so much so that its CEO Sam Altman has recently activated the “code red” (the highest alert level within the company) and urged the organization he leads to focus on improving ChatGPT. The declaration of this “code red” highlights that OpenAI fears losing its leadership in the AI ​​industry and wants to prioritize for this reason the introduction of improvements to its flagship product: ChatGPT.

According to The InformationAltman would have recently published an internal memo in which he states that ChatGPT has reached “a very critical point” and emphasizes that we must necessarily focus on improving this product.

The activation of the “code red” in OpenAI would also imply that other projects currently underway within the company would be postponed. Among these projects would be the development of AI agents to automate purchases and carry out tasks directly related to health, the introduction of advertising in ChatGPT and also “Pulse”, which treats the user with personalized updates based on their chats, their comments and their connected applications.

The advances made by Google would have led to the activation of the red code by OpenAI

The fact that OpenAI has made the decision to declare a state of emergency within the company would be attributable above all and above all to the advances recently made by Google. Not in vain, Gemini 3, the latest AI model from the Mountain View company, which was released last month, has surpassed GTP-5 in key performance indicators and has also been showered with praise from users in areas such as image generation.

Furthermore, Gemini’s popularity is clearly on the rise. And if this tool had 450 million active monthly users in July of last year, this figure has climbed to 650 million users as of October 2025. This is a figure that is still considerably below the 800 million users of ChatGPT, but in any case it shows an extraordinarily conspicuous growth on the part of Gemini that seems to have set off the alarms within OpenAI.

In fact, in the memo shared by Sam Altman with employees, the CEO of OpenAI warns that “Gemini 3 could translate into financial difficulties for our company in the short term.”

OpenAI reportedly plans to release next week an AI model that would outperform Gemini 3 (in internal evaluations at least). However, Altman insists that efforts must be redoubled to further improve ChatGPT. “We are in the opposite situation to the one we experienced three years ago, when Google declared code red in response to the ChatGPT threat,” Altman would have stressed in the internal memo echoed by Google. The Information.