Earlier this week, there were multiple reports claiming that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had raised a ‘code red’ in an internal memo after increasing competition from rivals like Google and Anthropic. Since then, OpenAI’s Head of ChatGPT Nick Turley has publicly confirmed that ads are not dropping for the chatbot just yet, while a new report by The Verge now claims that the company’s response to rivals could arrive as soon as next week.
Reportedly, OpenAI’s response to Gemini 3, which has been ranked on top of multiple benchmarks, will be GPT-5.2. The model was earlier said to debut later in December, but pressure from Gemini 3 is now reported to have forced the ChatGPT maker’s hand, with the new model expected to drop on 9 December.
The report cautions that the GPT-5.2 release could shift in response to development challenges, server capacity issues or rival AI model announcements.
An earlier report from The Information had stated that OpenAI’s next reasoning model was internally evaluated to perform ahead of Gemini 3.
Notably, OpenAI launched its GPT-5.1 model last month, but the Gemini 3 launch just a week later took the spotlight away from the AI startup. Meanwhile, OpenAI has struggled to match competitors in image generation and editing since the GPT-4o native image generation capabilities release in March this year, which led to the viral Ghibli style image trend.
In contrast, Google was previously far behind in the image generation space but managed to turn the tide first with Nano Banana and more recently with the Nano Banana Pro launch. The new Google models are ranked at the top of several benchmarks and some of their features, like access to Google Search and consistent text rendering, have put competitors at a disadvantage.
OpenAI’s ‘Code Red’ for ChatGPT
After the implementation of ‘code red’, OpenAI is reportedly working on improving the day to day experience of users with ChatGPT. This includes better personalisation features, improved speed and reliability, and the ability to answer a wider range of questions.
In the memo, Altman reportedly said that OpenAI would push back on some other initiatives, including bringing ads to ChatGPT, AI agents for health and shopping, and the personal assistant Pulse.
The San Francisco based AI startup had earlier declared ‘code orange’ to improve ChatGPT. OpenAI is said to have three colour codes to mark the severity of problems, with red being the highest priority, followed by orange and yellow
