Three years after Google sounded alarm bells over ChatGPT, the tables have turned.
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OpenAI CEO declares “code red” as Gemini gains 200 million users in 3 months
- Thread starter JournalBot
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"Guys, we're not lighting enough money on fire, we need to focus on burning more money more faster" -AI CEOs
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I know I'm selectively editing a quote here, but this kind of stuff:
Ah yes, the problem was that previously the rank and file employees did not know that having the product be good was important. You sure set them straight, Sir! Brilliant deduction and swift, decisive action. You should get a raise.
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Its not only that gemini has gotten better, its that aspects of chatgpt has arguably gotten worse. Voice mode for instance is almost unusable now. If you try to discuss something, all it does is compliment you on your thinking and repeat back what you’ve just told it. It used to ask follow up questions, or try to add other perspectives.
I don’t know what kind of reinforcement learning they are subjecting it to, but its not working. Or perhaps this is exactly the behavior that the bulk of their users want, who knows.
I don’t know what kind of reinforcement learning they are subjecting it to, but its not working. Or perhaps this is exactly the behavior that the bulk of their users want, who knows.
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This is almost certainly about goosing the investors just a bit more to delay the shorts that other companies are seeing.
Of course, not all of these can be “shorted” in the traditional sense but the loss of confidence is real and it is a real threat to the grift.
Of course, not all of these can be “shorted” in the traditional sense but the loss of confidence is real and it is a real threat to the grift.
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They haven't even gotten around to swindling retail investors yet. There's a ton more fleece to be fleeced before this stupid Ponzi scheme collapses.
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If their service loses money for each user and Google are stealing said users... revenue might go down but net income is going up!
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I assume that OpenAI partnered with Accenture because that's as close as you can get to working with Arthur Andersen these days?
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Ok,I use LLMs daily (GPT, Claude, Gemini, occasionally Grok, often running the same thing and comparing), and I’m really struggling to see what exactly makes Gemini so much ahead of GPT/Claude (except maybe image generation, but it’s also a mixed bag).
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It turns out that now the genie is out of the bottle, anyone with enough GPU horsepower, access to commercially-available datasets - and a willingness to burn through vast amounts of energy - can train their own perfectly capable models.
The idea that this would remain the sole domain of one or two specialist AI companies, who would get people hooked then jack up the price to achieve profitability, was always a bit of a fantasy. They thought they were the ones selling shovels during an AI gold-rush, but instead that's Nvidia.
The idea that this would remain the sole domain of one or two specialist AI companies, who would get people hooked then jack up the price to achieve profitability, was always a bit of a fantasy. They thought they were the ones selling shovels during an AI gold-rush, but instead that's Nvidia.
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As long as there is cash to burn. Is the Saudi royal fund a thing? Does Softbank still exist? Still lots of fools out there
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I fail to see the winning move here.
OpenAI gets a good result.
Google amps up their work, and gets a good result.
Microsoft repeat that.
Facebook repeat that.
Grok repeat that.
Everyone ramps up the money burning.
End result ... No one company is going to dominate this field.
Everyone burns vast amounts of money.
The LLM model isn't going to lead to Terminator style AI. It's just going to get better text prediction.
OpenAI gets a good result.
Google amps up their work, and gets a good result.
Microsoft repeat that.
Facebook repeat that.
Grok repeat that.
Everyone ramps up the money burning.
End result ... No one company is going to dominate this field.
Everyone burns vast amounts of money.
The LLM model isn't going to lead to Terminator style AI. It's just going to get better text prediction.
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Missing Minute
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
It is effectively impossible to have a "moat" in this class of products, and the costs associated with them are going down and will soon be low enough that users can run all the models they want locally.
How is any of this supposed to lead to a situation where there is a positive return on investment?
How is any of this supposed to lead to a situation where there is a positive return on investment?
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I'm not so sure OpenAI really had first mover advantage - unless it just means they were first to release their tool to the public.
OpenAI's bigger issue is that what they and the others have done has almost been commoditized, and it's looking like that Chinese are pushing to simply further that situation with models like Deepseek. Sure, they can do it at scale but a general purpose knowledge chatbot is only one application of LLMs. Those who are integrating with any of the vendors (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, etc) are potentially just going to move to a free solution at some point if they're all close to equal.
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If you edit a photo on your Android phone, you're likely counted as a Gemini "user," whether or not you're specifically aiming to be one. That figure of 200 million smells like marketing talk to me.
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How are they tracking users using Gemini and how is OpenAI getting Google's numbers? Are they counting the AI blurb being pushed down everyone's throats from a google search? What constitutes "use"?
I suppose Microsoft will start with similar numbers on copilot because someone accidentally used it trying to find an app on the computer that it so helpfully searches the entire internet for now. Found that wonderful gem the last time I had to help my elderly step dad with his new windows laptop.
It seems like any company can make wild claims about individuals using their products if they can pull numbers out of the air. But much like everything else in this AI bubble it's driven by hype and drivel. Damn it, this bubble can't burst fast enough.
I suppose Microsoft will start with similar numbers on copilot because someone accidentally used it trying to find an app on the computer that it so helpfully searches the entire internet for now. Found that wonderful gem the last time I had to help my elderly step dad with his new windows laptop.
It seems like any company can make wild claims about individuals using their products if they can pull numbers out of the air. But much like everything else in this AI bubble it's driven by hype and drivel. Damn it, this bubble can't burst fast enough.
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They're after quarterly bonuses, not ROI. ROI is investors' jobs, but investors' money must go somewhere.
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Until they can start lighting retail money on fire with an IPO.
Its more the widening of routes to reach the performance. Google shows that they can run it on lower power TPUs, and now the cost per token for open AI becomes a problem... and nvidia may not be the only Shovel maker, etc. I see it more like when bitcoin mining diverged from GPU only. Not sure its the right analysis, but there is more than just model benchmarks at play.
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To update an old expression, if you owe the bank a billion that's your problem. If you owe the bank a trillion that's the bank's problem.
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For exactly as long as investors are willing to shovel their cash into the boilers.
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Honestly, good. I'm so sick of hearing Sam Griftman promising that the next point release is going to be AGI while the product is somehow getting worse over time.
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I dunno. I’m not sure what else he was supposed to do.
In my ideal world they would have actually shipped some useful, purpose built software applications around these LLMs. But then their investors were promised digital god, not better software, and better software doesn’t get you the absurd amount of investor money you need to keep this house of cards from collapsing.
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I know you probably don’t mean this literally, but there idea of not being able to function without a chat bot is low key hilarious.
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If we take the LMArena leaderboard seriously, then some concern is warranted. I just looked, and the current leaderboard looks like this:
1. Gemini-3-pro
2. Grok-4.1-thinking
3/4. Calude-opus-4-5-2025....
5. GPT-5.1-high
6. Grok-4.1
7. Claude-opus-4-1-2025...
8. Calude-sonnet-4-5...
9. Gemini-2.5-pro
10. Claude-sonnet-4-5...
(Claude version numbers are long!)
So OpenAI has one model out of the top 10 overall (taken from the Arena Overview). If I were burning money the way they are, I'd like to be doing a bit better than that.
1. Gemini-3-pro
2. Grok-4.1-thinking
3/4. Calude-opus-4-5-2025....
5. GPT-5.1-high
6. Grok-4.1
7. Claude-opus-4-1-2025...
8. Calude-sonnet-4-5...
9. Gemini-2.5-pro
10. Claude-sonnet-4-5...
(Claude version numbers are long!)
So OpenAI has one model out of the top 10 overall (taken from the Arena Overview). If I were burning money the way they are, I'd like to be doing a bit better than that.
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My experience with “code red” in tech is it’s just another “management” tool in the box that they can whip out at sporadic intervals based on some dubious news or metric. As in “let’s just keep saying the phrase ‘code red’ and see if it gets productivity up, since we don’t actually know a genuinely effective way to enable the achievement of our goals” (read: investor-facing promises)
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Well, at some point OpenAPI just declares bankruptcy, leaves all the cloud infrastructure providers and other creditors holding the bag, and Sam Altman sails off on a yacht made of bonuses to find the next set of
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For some games, the best way to win is to not play at all. The LLM/general intelligence AI business seems to fit that mold perfectly.
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Altman claimed AGI was a solved problem and OpenAI would have it in 2025, so why worry?
With AGI, they'll make trillions and solve both Full Self Driving and creating the Humanoid Robot Army. Musk will be green with envy.
/s so much /s
With AGI, they'll make trillions and solve both Full Self Driving and creating the Humanoid Robot Army. Musk will be green with envy.
/s so much /s
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This article and this quote are equally challenging for me to understand.
We are to believe that the Salesforce CEO has been using Chat GTP daily for three years, and that somehow an improvement in Gemini has caused him to not only stop using Chat GTP but to “never go back.” (What if Chat GTP is “insanely!!!!” better in a month?) We are to believe that he decided it was such an important change that he decided to post on X to let us all know. He decided to tell us “it’s insane!”
Ars read the quote and decided it was a great source of info for this pointless article.
No CEO is posting this without a motivation to help their own business.
What exactly is Gemini doing that Chat GTP is failing at? I can’t find any useful information in this article. It reads like either a Google PR piece or a Wallstreet PR piece to drive stock value.
I don’t use either of these products, so I’ve no interest here other than for good journalism.
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