OpenAI has lost 6% of its users after Gemini 3 launch, report says

Recently, Google introduced Gemini 3, which the company called its "most intelligent" AI model yet. So far, the AI leaderboards agree, with Gemini 3 surging ahead of rivals like ChatGPT at LMArena. Now, OpenAI head honcho Sam Altman has reportedly declared "code red" at the company in response to increased pressure from competitors. 

The announcement came in the form of a memo that was leaked to The Wall Street Journal. The contents of the memo are largely unknown, but the message was direct — OpenAI has some serious competition in the likes of Gemini 3 and Anthropic’s Claude, and the company needs to do something about it. 

According to a post on X from former Googler Deedy Das, OpenAI has lost nearly 6 percent of its traffic since Gemini 3 launched. The data is sourced from SimilarWeb, which says that ChatGPT went from 203 million average daily visits to 191 million. If that data is accurate, it means OpenAI lost about 12 million people per day over the last week. Some of that may be due to Thanksgiving, but it's a big shift. 

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The problems started months ago with some slips from the reigning champion of AI chatbots. When GPT-5 was released earlier this year, it was immediately criticized for its less friendly tone compared to earlier models. Criticism was so intense that OpenAI ultimately decided to bring back GPT-4o. The data shows that GPT-5 is more capable than its predecessors, but its lack of personality irked hardcore users who used the bot every day. Plus, OpenAI has been walking a tightrope to balance functionality and safety, which it has not done particularly well. 

Despite the criticisms, it seemed OpenAI was destined to keep its top spot among the AI chatbot competitors. However, Google released Gemini 3 in late November to nearly universal praise, with Google’s offerings topping nearly all of the benchmark leaderboards. Due to the sheer size and reach of Google, the company has a significant advantage in accessing training data, the lifeblood of AI models.

The competition is also ramping up on the enterprise side of things. Anthropic boasts more than 300,000 business customers as of September 2025, which includes some Fortune 500 companies. 

These are all likely reasons why OpenAI is in code red; losing that many visitors is certainly noticeable. Of course, OpenAI is hardly staying still. The company is working on tons of initiatives, including inking infrastructure deals with the likes of Nvidia, Oracle, and other companies. 

In November, Sam Altman wrote a long post on X addressing fears of an AI bubble and concerns that OpenAI is overextending itself.

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Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.