I’m looking at Alcatraz Island from a Mediterranean restaurant in San Francisco with hundred-dollar fish entrées on the menu. As I make small discuss with different reporters, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman jumps by way of the door on my left. Altman’s trying down at his naked iPhone to indicate us all one thing, and an intrusive thought slips out of my mouth: “No cellphone case is a daring alternative.”
After all, I instantly understand that the billionaire CEO of OpenAI, who employs Apple veteran Jony Ive, cares extra about preserving the iPhone’s unique design than the $1,000 it prices to interchange one.
“Hear, we’re going to ship a tool that’s going to be so lovely,” says Altman, referring to OpenAI and Ive’s forthcoming AI gadget. “In the event you put a case over it, I’ll personally hunt you down,” he jokes.
Altman has gathered roughly a dozen tech reporters to affix him and different OpenAI executives for an on-the-record dinner (and off-the-record dessert). The night time raises extra questions than it solutions.
For example, why is Nick Turley, the VP of ChatGPT, kindly passing me a lamb skewer only a week after launching GPT-5? Is that this to encourage me to write down good issues about OpenAI’s largest AI mannequin launch but, which was comparatively disappointing given the years of hype round it?
Not like GPT-4, which far outpaced rivals and challenged expectations of what AI can do, GPT-5 performs roughly on par with fashions from Google and Anthropic. OpenAI even introduced again GPT-4o and ChatGPT’s mannequin picker, after a number of customers expressed considerations over GPT-5’s tone and its mannequin router.
However all through the night time, it turns into clear to me that this dinner is about OpenAI’s future past GPT-5. OpenAI’s executives give the impression that AI mannequin launches are much less vital than they had been when GPT-4 launched in 2023. In any case, OpenAI is a really completely different firm now, centered on upending legacy gamers in search, client {hardware}, and enterprise software program.
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Altman says OpenAI’s incoming CEO of purposes, Fidji Simo, will oversee a number of client apps outdoors of ChatGPT — ones OpenAI has but to launch. Simo is slated to begin work at OpenAI in just some weeks, and she or he would possibly find yourself overseeing the launch of an AI-powered browser that OpenAI is reportedly creating to compete with Chrome.
Altman suggests OpenAI would even think about shopping for Chrome — doubtless a proposal that will be taken extra significantly than Perplexity’s bid — ought to it turn into obtainable. “If Chrome is absolutely going to promote, we must always check out it,” he says earlier than taking a look at all of us and asking: “Is it truly going to promote? I assumed it wasn’t gonna occur.”
Simo additionally would possibly find yourself working an AI-powered social media app — one thing the OpenAI CEO has mentioned he’s involved in exploring. Actually, Altman says there’s “nothing” inspiring to him about the way in which AI is used on social media at the moment, including that he’s involved in “whether or not or not it’s doable to construct a a lot cooler type of social expertise with AI.”
Whereas Turley and Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s COO, largely give the ground to Altman, consuming wine alongside the opposite seated visitors, Altman additionally confirms experiences that OpenAI plans to again a brain-computer interface startup, Merge Labs, to compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink. (“We have now not performed that deal but; I would love us to.”)
How intertwined that firm will probably be with OpenAI’s fashions and gadgets stays to be seen. Altman describes it solely as a “an organization that we’d spend money on.”
For all of the discuss of browsers and mind chips, although, the elephant within the room stays GPT-5’s tough reception. Ultimately, the dialog circles again to the mannequin that has prompted our group dinner within the first place.
Turley and Altman say they’ve realized so much from the expertise.
“I legitimately simply thought we screwed that up,” says Altman on deprecating GPT-4o with out telling customers. Altman says OpenAI will give customers a extra clear “transition interval” when deprecating AI fashions sooner or later.
Turley additionally says OpenAI is already rolling out a brand new replace to make GPT-5’s responses “hotter,” however not sycophantic, such that it received’t reinforce damaging behaviors in customers.
“GPT-5 was simply very to the purpose. I like that. I take advantage of the robotic character — I’m German, you recognize, no matter,” says Turley. “However many individuals don’t, they usually actually like the truth that ChatGPT would truly examine in with you.”
It’s a fragile stability for OpenAI to strike, particularly provided that some customers have developed dependencies on ChatGPT. Altman says OpenAI believes that lower than 1% of ChatGPT customers have unhealthy relationships with the chatbot — which may nonetheless be tens of thousands and thousands of individuals.
Turley says OpenAI has labored with psychological well being consultants to develop a rubric to judge GPT-5’s solutions, guaranteeing that the AI mannequin will push again on unhealthy behaviors.
That mentioned, plainly GPT-5 hasn’t damage OpenAI’s enterprise. Actually, Altman says OpenAI’s API visitors doubled inside 48 hours of GPT-5’s launch, and the corporate is successfully “out of GPUs” due to all of the demand. Cursor and different AI coding assistants have since made GPT-5 their default AI fashions.
In some ways, the night time’s contradictions — disappointing launches, record-breaking utilization — mirror OpenAI’s unusual actuality proper now.
Given OpenAI’s bets — and others the corporate is making round information facilities, robotics, and power — Altman clearly has ambitions of working a a lot greater firm than simply the ChatGPT maker. The ultimate kind may look one thing like Google’s dad or mum Alphabet, however maybe even broader.
Because the night time winds down, it turns into clear we aren’t gathered to mirror on GPT-5 in any respect. We’re being pitched on an organization that’s desirous to outgrow its well-known and controversial product.
It appears doubtless that OpenAI will go public to fulfill its large capital calls for as a part of that image. In preparation, I feel Altman needs to hone his relationship with the media. However he additionally needs OpenAI to get to a spot the place it’s now not outlined by its finest AI mannequin.
