OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees that Google’s rapid AI progress—highlighted by the launch of its new Gemini 3 model—could create “temporary economic headwinds” for the company, according to an internal memo reported by The Information. The message acknowledged that OpenAI’s once-comfortable technological lead has tightened, particularly in the costly and resource-intensive pretraining phase of model development.
Google began rolling out Gemini 3 earlier this week, drawing positive reactions from analysts and industry leaders, including Altman himself. The company also upgraded its AI image generator Nano Banana with a new Pro version built on Gemini 3 Pro, adding to the competitive momentum.
The rivalry underscores a stark financial imbalance between the two companies. OpenAI expects to burn more than $100 billion in the coming years as it scales compute and model development, while Google—supported by profitable cloud and advertising businesses—has significantly more capacity to fund large-scale AI investments.
Even so, Altman reassured employees that OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, remains committed to long-term breakthroughs, including efforts to automate AI research and accelerate the pace of innovation. The intensifying competitive environment echoes broader pressures facing the AI sector, a dynamic explored further in Aistify’s report on the shifting landscape surrounding Google’s recent AI advances.
