OpenAI goes “code red,” developing new “Garlic” AI model to counter Google’s AI surge

On Monday, December 1, 2025, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI had declared an internal “code red” amid competition from Google and Anthropic. The Verge later added that CEO Sam Altman told staff the company would pause several upcoming projects — including advertising for ChatGPT, shopping features, health agents, and a personal assistant codenamed Pulse.

OpenAI is shifting its focus to speed, reliability, personalization, and broader query coverage in ChatGPT. Now, we’re seeing how the maker of the world’s most widely used chatbot is moving to retake its lead and push back against Google’s recent rise.

According to a report from The Information, OpenAI is advancing a new large language model codenamed “Garlic,” an effort described internally as a direct push to counter the growing strength of Google’s Gemini 3 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5. Garlic is being treated as part of a broader plan to strengthen the company’s position in areas where rivals have gained traction — coding performance, reasoning, and enterprise reliability.

OpenAI’s Garlic Model: A Code Red Response to Counter Google’s Recent AI Gains

The project surfaced on December 2 in another Information report that detailed a staff briefing led by Chief Research Officer Mark Chen. According to sources familiar with the meeting, Garlic is posting strong early results across internal benchmarks and has already exceeded expectations in coding and advanced reasoning. The model “addresses structural issues from the earlier Shallotpeat project and achieves ‘big model knowledge’ in a smaller architecture,” the report said. That line points to work aimed at fixing GPT-4.5’s pre-training issues while cutting the heavy compute loads that strained budgets over the past year.

Chen also told staff that Garlic may turn out to be a more consequential release than earlier signals suggested. OpenAI is aiming to ship a version of Garlic as soon as possible, raising the prospect that GPT-5.2 or GPT-5.5 will arrive by early next year. Inside the company, the target is clear: move quickly enough to meet Gemini 3 head-on before Google widens its lead.

“But Garlic may be a bigger deal. Chen said OpenAI is looking to release a version of Garlic as soon as possible, which we think means people shouldn’t be surprised to see GPT-5.2 or GPT-5.5 release by early next year,” The Information reported.

Garlic is separate from Shallotpeat, another model under development that Altman described to employees in October as a key part of OpenAI’s effort to challenge Gemini 3. Garlic builds on work from that project by incorporating fixes that address issues found during Shallotpeat’s pretraining phase. Pretraining is the stage in which a model is shown data from the web and other sources so it can learn patterns and relationships. These fixes appear central to Garlic’s early gains, allowing a slimmer architecture to hold far more depth than earlier mid-sized models.

“Garlic is a different model from Shallotpeat, a new large language model under development which Altman told staff in October would help OpenAI challenge Gemini 3. Garlic incorporates bug fixes that the company used in developing Shallotpeat during the pretraining process, the first stage of model training in which an LLM is shown data from the web and other sources so it can learn connections between them.”

Garlic is shaping up to be more than a routine upgrade. According to internal evaluations shared with The Information, the model delivers significant pretraining gains, enabling OpenAI to pack big-model knowledge into much smaller architectures. Early tests show Garlic outperforming Google’s Gemini 3 and Anthropic’s Opus 4.5 in coding and reasoning, two of the most contested areas in the current AI race. These improvements stem from work on the structural issues that limited GPT-4.5, giving Garlic far greater reach without the heavy compute burden that slowed recent releases.

Inside OpenAI, the plan is to ship Garlic as soon as it reaches acceptable stability, suggesting a possible debut as GPT-5.2 or GPT-5.5 early next year. The push aligns with Altman’s “code red,” which reframed Garlic as a central part of OpenAI’s effort to regain momentum, as Gemini is drawing more attention across the industry. Garlic is still in development, and nothing is final, but the early data suggest something important: scaling efficiency may not be flattening the way some researchers feared. If these results hold up in real-world use, OpenAI could regain ground sooner than expected.

Inside the company, the December 1 memo marked a sharp shift in tone. ChatGPT still draws an enormous base of roughly 800 million weekly users, yet Gemini has surged from 450 million to 650 million monthly actives since July, tightening the race. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s public move to Gemini added extra pressure, as did early signs that some enterprises were testing Anthropic’s Opus for sensitive workflows.

In response, OpenAI froze several growth-oriented features and turned daily team check-ins into routine practice. Employees have been encouraged to move between teams to accelerate development. It’s a notable reversal of roles: three years ago, Google scrambled after ChatGPT’s debut forced leadership to sound its own internal alarm. As The Guardian noted this week, the positions have flipped.

Garlic’s codename has already sparked colorful commentary outside the company. Seeking Alpha likened it to a kind of Van Helsing-style countermeasure, while researchers view it as a move to address the pretraining issues that limited GPT-4.5. WebProNews reported that Garlic could “close the gap” on efficiency and reasoning, noting that Gemini 3 has drawn praise for strong multimodal performance and lower inference costs. The Indian Express described Garlic as a shift toward more specialized AI, with deeper strength in coding rather than broad versatility.

OpenAI has yet to publicly comment on Garlic, leaving analysts to interpret the leaks. eWeek described Garlic as one of two major ongoing research tracks, hinting at possible overlap with Shallotpeat. Investing.com pointed to the broader financial stakes: OpenAI is projecting $200 billion in revenue by 2030 to help offset roughly $1.4 trillion in data center commitments. A slowdown could affect Microsoft as well, as the company already recorded a $3.1 billion hit tied to OpenAI last quarter.

Observers watching the broader industry view Garlic as a clear sign of where the AI race is heading. Ars Technica wrote that the code red reflects a moment where product performance determines who leads and who falls behind. Forbes described Altman’s memo as an acknowledgment of pressure from rivals, noting that even a short delay in ChatGPT ads could push meaningful revenue further out. On Reddit’s r/singularity, debates are underway about whether Garlic signals a profound shift in training strategy or a move to preempt excitement around Anthropic’s next Opus release.

For OpenAI, Garlic has become the centerpiece of a reset — a model meant to steady confidence, deliver cleaner performance, and show that the company can respond to pressure with speed and clarity. If the model lives up to its early signals, it may restore momentum at a crucial moment. If it falls short, Google and Anthropic may widen their lead well into 2026.

Garlic is arriving as OpenAI’s most direct answer yet to the competitive pressure building around it. The coming months will show whether that answer lands with the force the company needs.

Credit: Business Insider