Jessica Mendoza

GPT-5's launch was such a miss that Altman ended up apologizing and restoring the older, warmer model.

Corporate rivals now had an opening.

As OpenAI was trying to calm its users, Google was generating buzz.

Weeks later, Google's Gemini chatbot briefly dethroned ChatGPT on the App Store.

It proved that OpenAI's rivals could capture hype just as easily.

And then came the real gut punch.

Google's latest model of Gemini wasn't just winning popularity contests, it was getting top grades.

Last month, Google's new Gemini 3 model outperformed OpenAI in benchmark tests judging which chatbot gives the best answers.

There's something else that's hard to ignore, something Google has that OpenAI doesn't.

It's deep pockets.

Yeah, they're not going to go bankrupt.

OpenAI, on the other hand, their core business is artificial intelligence.

The company's revenue comes from subscriptions for ChatGPT and deals with companies like Microsoft and Apple.

Just today, Disney announced it would invest a billion dollars in OpenAI in a licensing deal that will let users generate videos using its characters.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, also has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI.

Even with all those deals, though, OpenAI doesn't have endless resources.

The company that set off the modern AI boom is now fighting to hold on to its lead.

And Altman has a plan.

That's next.

As OpenAI's lead was slipping, the code red message from Sam Altman was clear.