ChatGPT's 'code red' could be pin that pops AI bubble

OpenAI boss Sam Altman declared a "code red" after Gemini 3's launch. With data breaches and fears of an AI bubble growing, Anthony Cuthbertson warns the firm is in trouble

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Sam Altman is privately panicking. In the week that he was supposed to be celebrating ChatGPT’s third birthday, the OpenAI boss was facing a crisis on several fronts.

Just days after an investment report predicted that his company still won't be profitable by 2030, OpenAI was caught up in a data breach that exposed the personal details of ChatGPT users. His lawyers were also forced to deny accusations that the artificial intelligence chatbot acted as a “suicide coach” for a teenager who killed himself earlier this year.

In an internal memo last Monday, Altman declared a “code red” - and not even for any of the reasons above. The tech boss told employees that the emergency was a result of the massive advances made by OpenAI's rivals, which could threaten ChatGPT's position as the world's leading AI assistant.

Anthropic, DeepSeek and Meta have all made significant progress with their AI offerings, while Apple is also preparing to launch a revamped Siri early next year. Even Amazon's AI assistant Rufus has seen success in recent days. But the biggest competitor comes in the form of Google's Gemini.

When the search giant unveiled the latest version of Gemini in November, it was described as a “new era of intelligence”. Gemini 3 set record scores in benchmark tests, including the best ever result in Humanity's Last Exam - designed by AI safety researchers to identify artificial superintelligence that matches or surpasses humans.

Publicly, Altman said it “looks like a great model”, and congratulated Google in a post to X. Privately, he acknowledged that ChatGPT was no longer the leading AI on the market. In a message to workers, he reportedly wrote: “We know we have some work to do, but we are catching up fast.”