OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reportedly warned his employees to prepare for ‘rough months’ ahead, pointing at intensifying competitive pressure from Google. The memo, first highlighted in a report by The Information, highlights a crucial moment for OpenAI, a company that popularised the generative AI technology with ChatGPT.
Altman specifically highlighted Google’s advancements with its Gemini 3.0 model, which is rapidly being integrated across the tech giant’s ecosystem, including Search, Workspace, and Android, giving it access to billions of users by default. This widespread availability of the latest Gemini 3.0 model is what is causing concerns at OpenAI, which is yet to be integrated with any mass-scale product.
Altman also acknowledged the progress of other key rivals, such as Anthropic, whose Claude assistant has shown increasing skill, particularly in areas like code generation.
Altman asks his employees to maintain confidence
Despite the headwinds, the CEO urged staff to maintain focus and confidence in the company’s long-term mission. He reportedly stated that OpenAI has built “enough strength as a company to weather great models shipping elsewhere by the competition.” The memo emphasised that the company’s primary focus must remain on the goal of achieving superintelligence.
Altman’s warning anticipates “temporary economic headwinds” and rough external sentiment, reflecting a general cooldown of investor enthusiasm for standalone AI startups, especially when the dominant names in the industry accelerate their AI efforts.
Altman concluded by stressing the difficulty of balancing three simultaneous major objectives – operating the best research lab, building the best AI infrastructure, and creating the best AI platform/product company.
Despite these immense challenges, the CEO maintained, “I wouldn’t trade positions with any other company.”
OpenAI recently released GPT-5.1
While Altman remains worried about the competition from Google and its Gemini 3, OpenAI had recently unveiled the GPT-5.1 model for its users. This iterative upgrade to its flagship model brought enhancements for content generation, making the AI’s output “warmer,” more conversational, and less robotic than its predecessor.
More crucially, GPT-5.1 featured improved instruction following and new personality presets (like “Candid” and “Quirky”), giving content creators and marketers better control over the model’s tonality and style.
