OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has called for urgent upgrades to ChatGPT as the company faces mounting pressure from competing artificial intelligence systems. According to a report by the Information, Altman described the moment as critical and asked employees to intensify efforts to strengthen the chatbot.
The company has been unsettled by the momentum behind Google’s new Gemini 3 model, which has surpassed competitors in several performance benchmarks. In an internal message last month, Altman warned that the launch of Gemini 3 could create temporary economic challenges for OpenAI and advised staff to prepare for a difficult period.
ChatGPT currently records about 800 million weekly users but Google’s strong cash flow from its search business provides it with large financial capacity and access to extensive data resources for its AI products.
The shift in market sentiment has been amplified by public comments from Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff, who said he had switched to the Gemini 3 model after using ChatGPT consistently for three years. Benioff wrote that the speed and reasoning ability of Gemini 3 represented a significant leap.
OpenAI has also delayed plans to introduce advertising into ChatGPT as it concentrates on product improvements. The chatbot marked its third anniversary recently and the head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, said the team is focused on making the service more powerful, expanding global reach and improving user experience.
Although OpenAI does not have the wide financial support enjoyed by Google, Meta and Amazon, which funds its rival Anthropic, the company continues to attract major investment. It has secured backing from Microsoft and the SoftBank group and reached a valuation of 500 billion dollars in its most recent assessment. This is a sharp rise from its 157 billion dollar valuation in October last year.
OpenAI remains loss making but expects to record more than 20 billion dollars in revenue this year. Altman has projected that annual revenue could reach hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030. The company has committed to investing 1.4 trillion dollars in data centres over the next eight years in order to support the development and operation of its AI systems. Altman said the company is more concerned about having insufficient computing power than having excess capacity.
Competition across the global technology industry continues to intensify. Apple has appointed Amar Subramanya as its new vice president of AI. Subramanya previously held senior roles at Microsoft and spent sixteen years at Google, where he oversaw engineering for the Gemini assistant. He replaces John Giannandrea. Apple has been slower than some competitors to incorporate advanced AI features into its devices and has pushed back planned improvements to its Siri assistant until 2026.
