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 speak with different reporters, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman jumps by the door on my left. Altman’s wanting down at his naked iPhone to point out us all one thing, and an intrusive thought slips out of my mouth: “No telephone case is a daring selection.”
In fact, I instantly notice that the billionaire CEO of OpenAI, who employs Apple veteran Jony Ive, cares extra about preserving the iPhone’s authentic design than the $1,000 it prices to switch 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.
As an 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 write good issues about OpenAI’s greatest AI mannequin launch but, which was comparatively disappointing given the years of hype round it?
In contrast to 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 was about OpenAI’s future past GPT-5. OpenAI’s executives give the impression that AI mannequin launches are much less necessary than they had been when GPT-4 launched in 2023. In any case, OpenAI is a really totally different firm now, targeted on upending legacy gamers in search, client {hardware}, and enterprise software program.
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Altman says OpenAI’s incoming CEO of functions, Fidji Simo, will oversee a number of client apps exterior of ChatGPT — ones OpenAI has but to launch. Simo is slated to begin work at OpenAI in only a few weeks, and she or he would possibly find yourself overseeing the launch of an AI-powered browser that OpenAI is reportedly growing to compete with Chrome.
Altman suggests OpenAI would even take into account shopping for Chrome — probably a proposal that may be taken extra significantly than Perplexity’s bid — ought to it change into out there. “If Chrome is actually going to promote, we must always check out it,” he says earlier than all of us and asking: “Is it really 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 mentioned he’s thinking about exploring. Actually, Altman says there’s “nothing” inspiring to him about the best way AI is used on social media right this moment, including that he’s thinking about “whether or not or not it’s attainable to construct a a lot cooler sort of social expertise with AI.”
Whereas Turley and Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s COO, largely give the ground to Altman, ingesting wine alongside the opposite seated friends, Altman additionally confirms experiences that OpenAI plans to again a brain-computer interface startup, Merge Labs, to compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink. (“We’ve not finished that deal but; I would really like us to.”)
How intertwined that firm shall be with OpenAI’s fashions and gadgets stays to be seen. Altman describes it solely as a “an organization that we’d put money into.”
For all of the speak 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 discovered 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 adverse behaviors in customers.
“GPT-5 was simply very to the purpose. I like that. I exploit the robotic persona — I’m German, you realize, no matter,” says Turley. “However many individuals don’t, they usually actually like the truth that ChatGPT would really examine in with you.”
It’s a fragile steadiness 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 — which might nonetheless be tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Turley says OpenAI has labored with psychological well being consultants to develop a rubric to guage GPT-5’s solutions, guaranteeing that the AI mannequin will push again on unhealthy behaviors.
That mentioned, it appears that evidently GPT-5 hasn’t harm 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” because of all of the demand.
In some ways, the night time’s contradictions — disappointing launches, record-breaking utilization — replicate OpenAI’s unusual actuality proper now.
Given OpenAI’s bets on browsers, mind chips, AI chatbots — and others the corporate is making round information facilities, robotics, and power — Altman clearly has ambitions of working a a lot larger firm than simply the ChatGPT maker. The ultimate type might look one thing like Google’s mum or dad Alphabet, however even perhaps broader.
Because the night time winds down, it turns into clear we aeren’t gathered to replicate on GPT-5 in any respect. We’re being pitched on an organization that’s desperate to outgrow its well-known and controversial product.
It appears probably that OpenAI will go public to fulfill its large capital calls for as a part of that image. In preparation, I believe Altman desires to hone his relationship with the media. However he additionally desires OpenAI to get to a spot the place it’s now not outlined by its greatest AI mannequin.