OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has issued a “code red” internal memo urging employees to prioritize improving ChatGPT amid growing competitive pressure from Google and Anthropic. The move signals a strategic shift as OpenAI pulls back on investments in areas like health, shopping, and advertising to focus resources on strengthening its flagship chatbot. While OpenAI declined to comment, Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, emphasized the company’s mission to make the tool more capable, intuitive, and globally accessible. The urgency comes as Google accelerates its AI advancement with the launch of Gemini 3, a model praised for its performance across benchmarks and user experience. Google reports 650 million monthly active users for its Gemini app and 2 billion monthly users for AI Overviews in search results. Industry leaders like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff have publicly switched from ChatGPT to Gemini 3, calling the leap in reasoning, speed, and multimodal capabilities “insane.” Google’s ability to leverage its massive advertising revenue—$74 billion in a single quarter—gives it a financial edge to fund AI infrastructure at scale, unlike OpenAI, which faces a $1.4 trillion infrastructure commitment over eight years. Despite this, OpenAI maintains a significant user base, with nearly 800 million weekly active users. It also holds a first-mover advantage and brand recognition, with ChatGPT becoming synonymous with AI. However, Google’s full-stack control—from research and custom AI chips to its cloud and search platform—gives it a unique advantage in deploying AI at scale. OpenAI’s challenges extend beyond competition. The company is grappling with compute constraints that have delayed features like ChatGPT Pulse and led to reduced video generation limits for free users. Its efforts to build an ads business may also be delayed due to the “code red” focus. Meanwhile, Anthropic is gaining traction in the enterprise space. The company reported over 300,000 business customers as of September, with large accounts growing more than sevenfold in a year. This growth highlights a shift toward AI adoption in corporate workflows, a space OpenAI is also targeting. OpenAI’s journey from a nonprofit research lab to a $500 billion valuation company has been meteoric. Yet, its massive spending plans have drawn scrutiny. Altman has defended the strategy, arguing that long-term infrastructure investments are essential for AI’s future and that OpenAI is on track to reach $20 billion in annualized revenue this year, with ambitions to reach hundreds of billions by 2030. The AI race has evolved dramatically since 2022, when Google issued its own “code red” after ChatGPT’s debut. Now, the tables have turned. OpenAI, once the disruptor, faces the reality that tech giants can adapt quickly and leverage vast resources to catch up—or surpass—early innovators. Altman’s memo reflects a pivotal moment: OpenAI must defend its dominance not just through innovation, but through execution and resilience. While ChatGPT remains the gold standard for many, Google’s platform advantage and Anthropic’s enterprise momentum show that the AI landscape is far from settled. The coming months will test whether OpenAI can maintain its lead or if the era of tech giants reclaiming AI dominance has truly begun. For now, the race is on, and the pressure is mounting.