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OpenAI has reportedly hit the “code red” button - but what exactly is this all about? Recent reports from WSJ and the Financial Times suggest Sam Altman has paused ads, agent projects, and a bunch of experimental initiatives to rally the entire company around a single mission: Make ChatGPT significantly better, fast. So what sparked this urgency? Google’s Gemini 3 is closing the gap - fast - and the change is now showing up in actual user behavior. * Users are spending more time per session on Gemini than on ChatGPT. * Gemini has also surged to 650M monthly active users, almost doubling since March. We’re now in the stage where even small improvements matter. A 5–10% boost in reasoning, speed, or interaction depth can meaningfully tilt product loyalty. But here’s the catch: * Google owns the entire stack - TPUs, cloud, models, and distribution through Android, Search, and Workspace. * OpenAI doesn’t have that ecosystem advantage, which means its only path is to win purely on product excellence. That’s why this “code red” feels different. ChatGPT is the whole game for OpenAI - the product, the platform, and the brand rolled into one. There’s no safety net. Ironically, three years ago it was Google that sounded a code red because of ChatGPT. The pressure has flipped. I share my learnings on AI and data regularly - have a look at my earlier posts and follow me to stay updated with everything happening in AI.