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 has issued a "code red" alert to employees to improve ChatGPT, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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

With the new test, announced on Monday, Google says users will be able to “seamlessly go deeper” in AI Mode directly from the Search results page. While the test is rolling out to users globally, it’s only available on mobile devices for the time being.

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.