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OpenAI's 'Code Red' scramble

PLUS: Patients control AI and robotics with thought

Zach Mink

December 3, 2025

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Three years ago, ChatGPT sent Google scrambling with an internal "code red." Now, OpenAI is issuing one of its own.

An internal memo from Sam Altman said it’s a “critical time” for ChatGPT following its rival’s strong Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro releases, and the CEO is triggering an emergency push (including fast-tracking a new reasoning model) to stay ahead.

In today’s AI rundown:

OpenAI’s 'Code Red' after Google advances
Amazon drops AI agents, models, chips at re:Invent
Prepare for job interviews with NotebookLM
Mistral’s open-source models built to run anywhere
4 new AI tools, community workflows, and more

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

🚨 OpenAI’s 'Code Red' after Google advances

Image source: Nano Banana Pro / The Rundown

The Rundown: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees that the company is moving into a “code red” surge to improve ChatGPT after Google’s recent upgrades, according to The Information, shifting priorities and fast-tracking a model codenamed “Garlic.”

The details:

An internal memo from Altman said it is “a critical time for ChatGPT,” pushing for improvements to features like personalization and image generation.
He also revealed that a new reasoning model launching next week (Shallotpeat) reportedly beats Gemini 3 on benchmarks.
A larger model upgrade, Garlic, is targeting 2026, which The Information said could be a GPT-5.2 or 5.5-type release that solves previous pre-training issues.
OAI will reportedly delay advertising and AI agent initiatives as part of the Code Red push, focusing instead on the consumer experience surrounding ChatGPT.

Why it matters: In 2022, Google declared its own emergency push as a response to ChatGPT, and three years later, the roles are reversed. While OAI still commands a huge market share, its rivals are gaining — and with Gemini 3, Anthropic’s Opus 4.5, and the Chinese open-source push, its model lead has also never been more threatened.

TOGETHER WITH ZENDESK

💡 Contextual intelligence is the future

The Rundown: Zendesk’s CX Trends 2026 report maps out a clear path for CX leaders to use next-gen AI solutions to build emotionally intelligent relationships with customers at scale for impactful results in the new year.

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Upgrade to next-gen contextual intelligence
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Apply consistent service across the enterprise
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Keep leading in the AI era — download the CX Trends report today.

AMAZON

🚀 Amazon drops AI agents, models, chips at re:Invent

Image source: AWS

The Rundown: AWS kicked off its annual re:Invent conference with a wave of AI announcements, including new foundation models, a model training service, three development agents with agentic platform upgrades, and a new Trainium 3 AI chip.

The details:

The Nova 2 family includes Lite, Pro, Sonic for voice, and Omni for multimodal, hailing industry-leading cost-effectiveness and competitive benchmarks.
Nova Forge lets companies combine their data with Amazon's training data, creating custom "Novella" variants tuned to their business.
Nova Act launches for building and managing AI agents for web-based tasks, alongside new improvements to the company’s AgentCore platform.
Amazon also released three "frontier agents" — Kiro coding agent, Security Agent, and DevOps Agent — all of which run autonomously for hours or days.

Why it matters: Amazon has trailed behind the field with its in-house models, but its re:Invent releases show a push to compete on the full stack — chips, models, agents, and enterprise tooling all in one ecosystem. While it may not be as flashy as rivals, the tech giant has offerings to stay competitive in nearly every facet of the AI boom.

AI TRAINING

💼 Prepare for job interviews with NotebookLM

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use NotebookLM to prepare for job interviews by automatically gathering company research, generating practice questions, and creating personalized study materials.

Step-by-step:

Go to NotebookLM, click "New Notebook" and name it "Goldman Sachs Data Analyst Interview Prep", then click "Discover Sources" and prompt: "I need sources to prepare for my Data Analyst interview at Goldman Sachs"
Click settings, select "Custom" style, and configure: Style/Voice: "Act as interview prep coach who asks tough questions and gives feedback" Goal: "Help me crack the Data Analyst interview at Goldman Sachs"
Ask: "What are the top 5 behavioral questions for this role?", click "Save to Note", then three dots → "Convert to Source" to add Qs to source material
Click the pencil icon on "Video Overview", add focus: "How to answer behavioral questions for Goldman Sachs Data Analyst interview", and hit Generate for personalized prep video
Watch the video multiple times to internalize the answers and delivery style for your interview

Pro tip: Try comparing solutions across scenarios to understand the underlying reasoning patterns. This helps build better problem-solving skills for future challenges.

PRESENTED BY IBM

💡3 actions to help boost agentic AI impact

The Rundown: Businesses face many challenges going from AI ambition to implementation. Success requires more than adopting new technology. It involves intentionally aligning AI with workflows, data, and goals. As AI evolves into a business-wide opportunity, leaders must ensure the right AI is applied to the right challenges.

Explore IBM's playbook on 3 challenges & approaches to boost agentic AI impact:

Finding your AI problem
Creating a clear AI plan
Integrating AI with the tools you use every day

Read the playbook.

MISTRAL

🇫🇷 Mistral’s open-source models built to run anywhere

Image source: Mistral

The Rundown: French AI startup Mistral just released Mistral 3, a new family of 10 open-weight models that includes its flagship Large 3 and nine smaller variants designed to run on everything from consumer cloud to laptops, drones, and robots.

The details:

Large 3 is competitive with non-reasoning models like Qwen3, Kimi-2, and DeepSeek V3.1, while also featuring multimodal and multilingual capabilities.
The Ministral 3 lineup offers three sizes (3B, 8B, 14B) in base, instruct, and reasoning variants, all with vision capabilities and Apache 2.0 licensing.
The smallest Ministral models are capable of running on consumer hardware, enabling use on devices like laptops and phones, even without internet.

Why it matters: Mistral continues to carry the torch for Europe’s AI model and open-source presence, but its new flagship still trails industry leaders in intelligence, speed, and price. The more competitive variants may be the Ministral sizes, with options for a wide range of use cases and devices to leverage.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

🐳 DeepSeek V3.2 - DeepSeek’s latest powerful open-source release
🚀 Mistral 3 - Mistral’s new family of open-source models
⚙️ Amazon Nova - Four new models, with services to train custom versions
🖥️ Lux - OpenAGI’s powerful new computer-use model for agentic tasks

📰 Everything else in AI today

Apple announced its AI chief, John Giannandrea, will retire in early 2026, hiring former Microsoft and Google executive Amar Subramanya to take over key AI responsibilities.

OpenAGI emerged from stealth with Lux, an AI model designed to autonomously control computers that outperforms options from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

NVIDIA unveiled Alpamayo-R1 at NeurIPS, an open model for self-driving cars that uses step-by-step reasoning to navigate scenarios like pedestrian-heavy intersections.

Anthropic acquired open-source JavaScript toolkit Bun, also revealing that Claude Code has reached $1B in annual run-rate revenue just six months after its public launch.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the AI industry needs to “earn the social permission” from the public for its massive energy demands, straining electric grids.

COMMUNITY

🤝 Community AI workflows

Every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

Today’s workflow comes from reader Daniel R. in Pewaukee, WI:

"With help from Claude, I made a guide to help my 88-year-old mother assess assisted living facilities based on features that are important to her. The tool also created an amazing checklist of questions to ask when visiting a facility. The guide has helped make an overwhelming and difficult decision less threatening and more manageable."

How do you use AI? Tell us here.