The tale of two "code red" alerts, three years apart, highlights that even a buzzy AI pioneer like OpenAI can face competitive pressures.

Recently, Google introduced Gemini 3, which the company called its "most intelligent" AI model yet. So far, the AI leaderboards agree, with Gemini 3 surging ahead of rivals like ChatGPT at LMArena. Now, OpenAI head honcho Sam Altman has reportedly declared "code red" at the company in response to increased pressure from competitors.

The Hangzhou-based company released DeepSeek-V3.2 and a more specialized variant, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale, which it says can match or approach the performance of OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Google’s Gemini-3 Pro on key reasoning and math benchmarks.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued a "code red" effort in his company to improve the quality of ChatGPT, and as a result, delaying other products, a report said.

OpenAI is reportedly developing a new LLM codenamed Garlic, which internal tests suggest excels at coding and reasoning.

OpenAI in October declared a "Code Orange" as the ChatGPT maker was facing "the greatest competitive pressure".

OpenAI has made huge spending commitments totaling more than $1 trillion. Those include a $300 billion cloud-computing deal with Oracle and a $250 billion arrangement with Microsoft. OpenAI is valued at around $500 billion and expects to reach over $20 billion in annualized revenue this year.