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ZDNET's key takeaways
OpenAI felt the squeeze of recent OpenAI and Anthropic releases.
CEO Sam Altman has reportedly initiated a "code red."
As a result, OpenAI is working on a new "Garlic" model.
Following Google's release of Gemini 3, which quickly rose to the top of the LMArena AI leaderboard, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman informed employees that he was declaring a "code red." The aim was to further improve ChatGPT to better compete, according to a report by The Information. Now, a follow-up report from the publication reveals that the company is developing a new model in response, codenamed Garlic.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Also: Is DeepSeek's new model the latest blow to proprietary AI?
OpenAI's Chief Research Officer Mark Chen informed colleagues that Garlic has performed well in company evaluations compared to Gemini 3 and Anthropic's Opus 4.5 in tasks involving coding and reason, according to the report. This is important because both Gemini 3 and Anthropic Opus 4.5, released last month, set new industry standards, with the former leading in reasoning and the latter leading in coding.
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