Since 2023, ChatGPT had established itself as the standard-bearer of conversational artificial intelligence, attracting millions of users worldwide thanks to a technology that is both accessible, powerful, and versatile. Yet, on the dawn of 2025, what seemed to be an unshakable throne is wavering under repeated assaults. OpenAI, aware of the growing threat, triggered a rare “Code Red,” a maximum alert signal mobilizing all its forces to restore speed, innovation, and appeal to its flagship chatbot. Faced with the rising power of Gemini 3, Claude 4.5, and Llama 4, the challenge is clear: not to lose the leader position in an ecosystem where competition intensifies, technology evolves rapidly, and the compute war dictates the rules of a merciless digital battle.
The landscape of innovation in the field of artificial intelligence now looks less like a linear progression and more like a battlefield where the future of the digital revolution is at stake. OpenAI’s challenge no longer merely involves improving its technical performance; it concerns the ability to maintain its cultural and commercial leadership by keeping ChatGPT in users’ daily reflexes against rivals who grow more elegant, faster, and more relevant.
At the same time, economic constraints and the pressure of the compute war have shaped a radical strategy: temporary abandonment of less critical projects, suspension of advertising, internal reorganization — everything is put in place to stabilize the flagship platform and launch a counter-offensive. This Code Red represents an essential reaction to prevent ChatGPT from being relegated to the background, but rather to remain, or become again, the indispensable face of next-generation generative artificial intelligence.
- 1 The tangible threat of competitors: Gemini 3, Claude 4.5, and Llama 4 disrupt the artificial intelligence market
- 2 Why OpenAI triggered the “Code Red”: stakes of a major internal crisis
- 3 Technical challenges at the heart of the battle for ChatGPT
- 4 The compute war: a strategic stake for OpenAI’s future
- 5 The impact on users and the flight of power-users to other platforms
- 6 The role of narrative and imagination in the battle for AI leadership
- 7 OpenAI’s strategic reconfiguration facing the “Code Red”: priorities to regain the leader position
- 8 The importance of companies and professional uses in OpenAI’s survival
The tangible threat of competitors: Gemini 3, Claude 4.5, and Llama 4 disrupt the artificial intelligence market
Never before has the conversational artificial intelligence sector been as fiercely contested. While ChatGPT dominated almost undisputedly, three models have come to reshuffle the cards and create a new world order of innovation.
Gemini 3, launched by Google, quickly established itself through impressive performance. Its ability to integrate multimodal understanding, its execution speed, and its skill in handling video as native content have appealed both to general users and professionals. During a demonstration, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, stated after only two hours of use that he would not return to ChatGPT, citing the ergonomic and functional superiority of Gemini 3 Ultra.
On the other hand, Anthropic with Claude 4.5 has established itself as a model of reliability and rigor in complex reasoning chains. This model, praised in the corporate world, shines through its logical coherence and stability in long-term applications, attracting Fortune 500 companies looking for an AI capable of handling complex issues with finesse and precision.
Finally, on Meta’s side, Llama 4 boasts strong impact due to massive adoption. Its free and open-source model, available on WhatsApp and Instagram, directly reaches several billion users, offering an intuitive and integrated experience within an already familiar digital ecosystem. This strategy aims to democratize access to artificial intelligence and establish Llama 4 as an essential reference.
Adding to these players are challengers like DeepSeek in China, which offers models surpassing GPT-5.1 at a much lower training cost, or Mistral, which appeals to European sovereign actors through its consideration of local and ethical issues. All benefit from a multiplicity of approaches that make the sector less hegemonic and more dynamic.
For OpenAI, this simultaneous rise forces a rethink of its entire offering and strategy, because the time when ChatGPT was the undisputed first choice seems over. The competition no longer focuses simply on measurable technical points: it now acts on ergonomics, speed, reliability, and the symbolic dimension of the tool in the collective imagination.
Why OpenAI triggered the “Code Red”: stakes of a major internal crisis
Triggering a “Code Red” in a company the size and stature of OpenAI is not a trivial decision. This maximum alert signal reflects an immediate urgency: the necessity to avoid a loss of leadership that could be fatal to the company and the entire history of artificial intelligence.
Since summer 2025, weak signals have become strong: loss of loyal users, perceived slowdown in performance, delays in expected innovations coinciding with the spectacular rise of competitors. ChatGPT shows signs of fatigue, with customer feedback pointing to a certain slowness, excessive caution in responses, and even errors some describe as “hallucinations” with deceptive subtlety.
This situation has led to a gradual departure of power-users — advanced and demanding users — to competing platforms. The phenomenon is accompanied by an increase in churn, notably among ChatGPT Plus subscribers, and growing opacity in engagement figures communication, generally a sign of deep unease.
Sam Altman’s internal memo leaves no doubt: teams are called, less critical projects are put on hold, secondary initiatives frozen, advertising suspended. Everything must converge towards a nerve center: the lightning-fast improvement of ChatGPT, especially on speed, reliability, personalization, and multimodal capabilities.
This abruptly decided reorganization reveals a double threat: on one hand, the loss of the daily usage reflex that builds the user community every day, and on the other hand, a high-risk battle over the mastery of intensive computing infrastructures — the famous compute war — where OpenAI heavily depends on Azure without another sufficient revenue source to compensate.
In this context, the “Code Red” is an alert at all levels of the company: it is about preventing OpenAI’s large lead from turning into an insurmountable delay, synonymous with abandoning the role of global leader facing an increasingly multipolar and technical landscape.
Technical challenges at the heart of the battle for ChatGPT
The “Code Red” highlights technical difficulties that ChatGPT currently experiences, which profoundly influence its perception and usage.
Firstly, interaction speed has become a key criterion. While Gemini 3 Ultra displays impressive execution speed, ChatGPT is sometimes judged slow, notably in intensive or multimodal usage scenarios. This impacts user experience and pushes some to try the competition for tasks requiring shorter response times.
Secondly, model reliability is scrutinized closely. “Hallucinations,” these errors where the AI generates incorrect or unverified information, are all the more problematic as they are presented with a veil of assurance that can mislead the user. Claude 4.5 stands out for its consistency in producing logical answers even during long reasoning, thus reinforcing its corporate reputation.
Thirdly, personalization is now a major criterion to attract users. The ability to adapt responses, tone, and even long-term memory is sought after. OpenAI must push ChatGPT towards a more “intuitive and personal” intelligence, as promised by Nick Turley, the platform lead, so the tool becomes a genuine personal assistant rather than a generic chatbot.
Fourthly, multimodal understanding, notably the ability to process videos, images, and text in an integrated way, becomes a must in this sector. Gemini 3 already offers an enhanced experience in these formats, raising the bar very high. OpenAI must make progress in this area to remain relevant in a context where usages continually diversify.
| Criterion | ChatGPT (GPT-5.1) | Gemini 3 Ultra | Claude 4.5 | Llama 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Average | Excellent | Good | Good |
| Reliability | Good but prone to hallucinations | Good | Excellent | Good |
| Personalization | Basic | Advanced | Medium | Advanced thanks to open source |
| Multimodal capabilities | In development | Advanced | Medium | Good |
| User cost | High | Medium | Medium to high | Free or low cost |
These challenges confirm that ChatGPT’s future success will depend not only on specifically improving its technical weaknesses but also on strengthening its connection with a user base that is increasingly demanding and ready to migrate.
The compute war: a strategic stake for OpenAI’s future
Beyond features and user experience, another often invisible battle for the general public is played in the shadows: the management and access to the computing resources needed to train and run these massively demanding artificial intelligence models.
OpenAI currently spends colossal sums on data center infrastructures — more than $1.4 trillion committed over the next decade — primarily through exclusive partnerships with Microsoft Azure. This dependence creates fragility, as it places OpenAI in a position where it does not directly control its entire technology chain.
In contrast, Google owns its own GPU factories, which grants it strategic freedom, fluid innovation power, and a significant cost advantage. Meta, Amazon, and other major players also operate their own infrastructures to support their AI activities.
This financial and technological asymmetry places OpenAI in a fragile situation. In case of the need for radical acceleration or a race for computing power, its business model, primarily based on ChatGPT, limits its room for maneuver. Deprived of a diversified activity portfolio to amortize this effort, OpenAI must therefore optimize every resource to remain competitive.
This also explains the temporary suspension of secondary projects and the unprecedented focus of the company on the main tool, with a view to short-term survival but also preparation for the long-term strategic battle.
The impact on users and the flight of power-users to other platforms
A clear indicator of competitive pressure lies in the behavior of the most experienced and loyal users, often called “power-users.” These users, accustomed to leveraging the maximum power of ChatGPT, are the first to feel any flaw.
As Gemini 3 asserts its superiority in speed and multimodal understanding, power-users are leaving ChatGPT, attracted by more advanced features and smoother experiences. This progressive but tangible flight directly affects the platform’s image as well as its revenue from premium subscriptions.
Simultaneously, Claude 4.5 attracts a corporate clientele sensitive to reliability and coherence, while Llama 4, through its open-source model and massive presence on popular social networks, captures a broader audience, less focused on raw power but drawn to flexibility and free access.
This fragmentation disrupts ChatGPT’s cultural dominance, which until now benefited from a nearly hegemonic position. More than technical differentiations, it is the loss of usage reflex that worries most: an AI does not necessarily die because it declines technically, but because it ceases to be what users consult as their first reflex.
- Power-users migrate to Gemini 3 for its speed and multimodal performance;
- Companies adopt Claude 4.5 for its logical reliability and stability;
- General public and social users explore Llama 4 via WhatsApp and Instagram for its free access and universal integration;
- New entrants like DeepSeek gain ground in China, disrupting current economic models.
This fragmented adoption landscape upends OpenAI’s business model and complicates its upcoming strategic decisions.
The role of narrative and imagination in the battle for AI leadership
Beyond numbers, performance, and market shares, the battle OpenAI is fighting is first and foremost a narrative and symbolic battle.
During its early years, ChatGPT was more than a tool: it embodied a digital revolution, a bridge between science fiction and concrete reality, and the promise of a future where artificial intelligence would become universal, accessible, and intuitive. This strong imagery allowed OpenAI to cultivate an emotional link with millions of users.
But today, this symbolic role is seriously eroded. Gemini 3 captures media attention thanks to its technological power and visible innovations. Claude 4.5 is the standard-bearer of a reliable and logically mastered usage. Meta, by democratizing AI through its social platforms, establishes a close relationship with billions of users. Today, ChatGPT must fight to remain that cultural star that everyone consults first, otherwise it risks becoming a simple option among others, or even a secondary technology provider.
The future of OpenAI therefore depends on its AI remaining the engine of most digital interactions, the universal interface par excellence, under penalty of seeing its role marginalized in a multipolar universe where probably only one or two champions will remain.
OpenAI’s strategic reconfiguration facing the “Code Red”: priorities to regain the leader position
Following this major alert, OpenAI has redirected its efforts towards a few essential strategic axes to restore a competitive advantage and revive engagement dynamics around ChatGPT.
The number one priority is the improvement of speed and responsiveness. OpenAI is investing massively to reduce latency times, with the goal of competing with or even surpassing Gemini 3.
Then, advanced personalization is at the heart of the new model. Artificial intelligence must truly learn to better know its users, anticipate their needs, adapt its responses over the long term, and offer a truly personalized assistant experience.
Multimodal capabilities are also a major innovation field, with the company focusing its resources to enrich the understanding and generation of video, image, and audio contents in a fluid format, thus meeting the growing demands of users.
Finally, OpenAI is working on the development of autonomous agents capable of integrating complex tasks with less supervision, a key lever to differentiate itself in a competition that goes beyond the simple chatbot.
This overhaul also involves postponing advertising in ChatGPT, signaling that user experience now takes precedence over advertising revenue. Long-term success requires a robust, smooth, and intuitive tool more than aggressive monetization.
- Reducing response times to improve fluidity;
- Improving long-term memory for better personalization;
- Strengthening integrated multimodal capabilities;
- Developing more autonomous and precise intelligent agents;
- Suspending advertising to prioritize experience.
The importance of companies and professional uses in OpenAI’s survival
Beyond the average user, an increasing part of the challenge plays out in the professional sector. Companies finance a large part of AI system development and sustainability through their subscriptions, integrations, and business uses.
Faced with the arrival of Claude 4.5, known for its rigor and reliability in complex contexts, and Gemini 3, which offers speed and versatility, OpenAI must react to preserve its corporate market shares.
Many companies, especially in the Fortune 500, now test several solutions in parallel, seeking the one that combines quality results, controlled cost, and smooth integrations with their existing workflows.
The key for OpenAI is then to offer a flexible and stable platform capable of supporting complex and prolonged queries without quality degradation, while developing personalization tools to better adapt to specific sectoral needs.
At the same time, integration into operating systems, enterprise applications, and the emergence of intelligent agents will reshape the professional AI usage landscape in the medium term.
| User | Priority | Main Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Power-users | Performance and speed | Responsiveness and fluidity of use |
| Companies | Reliability and integration | Productivity gain and rigor |
| General public | Accessibility and personalization | Improved user experience |
In this race, OpenAI must imperatively stay the course on diversifying uses and satisfying varied user segments in order to ensure a sustainable economic balance, on which the long-term survival of ChatGPT directly depends.
Why did OpenAI trigger a Code Red?
OpenAI triggered a Code Red because the competition (notably Gemini 3, Claude 4.5, and Llama 4) rapidly advanced, jeopardizing ChatGPT’s leadership position due to user losses, technological delays, and a difficult-to-follow compute war.
Who are ChatGPT’s main competitors?
The major competitors include Google’s Gemini 3, Anthropic’s Claude 4.5, and Meta’s Llama 4, each bringing specific innovations such as speed, reliability, and massive accessibility.
What are the priority areas for ChatGPT’s improvement?
OpenAI focuses on speed, reliability, personalization, multimodal understanding, and the development of autonomous agents to strengthen ChatGPT against the competition.
How does the compute war impact OpenAI?
OpenAI heavily depends on Microsoft Azure for its computing capabilities, creating a strategic vulnerability compared to competitors like Google that own their own infrastructures.
Does ChatGPT remain relevant for businesses?
Despite the competition, ChatGPT remains an important reference for many companies thanks to its integrations but must evolve rapidly to maintain its position against models like Claude 4.5 or Gemini 3.
