Three years after the meteoric rise of ChatGPT, OpenAI, the $5000 billion AI giant, is facing its most severe challenge since its inception. (According to the Financial Times)ReportIt is pointed out that as competitors Google and Anthropic catch up rapidly in technology, OpenAI's huge early lead is gradually shrinking and it even faces the risk of being overtaken.
Google's comeback from rock bottom: the Gemini 3 delivers amazing performance.
Google, which was viewed negatively by outsiders and whose stock performance lagged behind a year ago, has seen a strong recovery this year. The turning point began with the Google I/O developer conference in May and the launch of the Nano Banana AI image-generating tool, which became a hit in the summer. This boosted the number of monthly active users of the Gemini App from 400 million in May to 650 million.
And the announcement made last weekGemini 3 modelThis model is considered key to Google's return to glory. It outperformed OpenAI's GPT-5 in several key benchmark tests, demonstrating Google's unique advantage in using its own TPU chips for full-stack training.
DeepMind CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu stated that this allows Google to significantly boost AI performance without relying on expensive NVIDIA chips.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff even posted on "X" in amazement: "I've been using ChatGPT every day for over 3 years, but after just 2 hours on my Gemini 3, I can't go back." He added that this leap forward is too crazy and it feels like the world has changed again.
OpenAI faces challenges from all sides; Sam Altman warns of "short-term pressure."
In response to Google's counterattack, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned employees in an internal memo last month that the company would face "short-term competitive pressure" and expected the atmosphere to be "a bit tough" in the coming period.
In addition to tackling technological challenges, OpenAI is also facing soaring data center costs and talent retention difficulties. The company has pledged to invest $1.4 trillion over the next eight years in...Stacking of computing powerThis astronomical figure far exceeds its current revenue and has been described by the nonprofit AI Now Institute as an "extremely risky gamble."
While OpenAI still boasts over 8 million weekly active users, in the enterprise market, Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, has built a rapidly growing business with its Claude chatbot and superior coding tools, and its valuation is projected to exceed $3000 billion.
The AI war has entered a new phase, with Google's market capitalization approaching $4 trillion.
Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf stated bluntly, "This is a completely different world from two years ago when OpenAI was far ahead. This is a new world."
With Google's parent company Alphabet's market capitalization approaching $4 trillion, Wall Street has regained confidence in its ability to combine search, cloud, and hardware strengths. Analyst Michael Nathanson believes the pressure has now shifted to Sam Altman, who will be tested on his ability to maintain technological leadership while successfully monetizing massive investments.
