HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — OpenAI declared a “code red” on Monday to improve ChatGPT, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
CEO Sam Altman said in a memo to employees that the company needed to enhance the chatbot and was delaying other products in the meantime, according to the newspaper. The Information, a tech news outlet, reported earlier on the memo.
OpenAI has to further develop the normal experience of using ChatGPT by improving its speed and reliability, by allowing it to answer a wider range of questions and by enhancing personalization options for users, Altman reportedly explained. He noted that the company would postpone work on advertising, AI agents for health and shopping and a personal assistant, The Wall Street Journal said.
Altman also encouraged temporary team transfers and added that OpenAI would have a daily call for employees responsible for improving ChatGPT, according to the newspaper. Nick Turley, who oversees the chatbot, said in a social media post Monday night that the company was focusing on making it more “capable” and feel more “personal” and “intuitive.”
OpenAI announced last month it was upgrading ChatGPT’s fifth series to make it smarter, friendlier and better able to follow users’ instructions. The chatbot was also going to be easier to understand, faster when performing simple tasks and more thoughtful on complex work, the company said.
“We heard clearly from users that great AI should not only be smart, but also enjoyable to talk to. GPT5.1 improves meaningfully on both intelligence and communication style,” OpenAI said in a press release.
“We’re also making it easier for you to shape ChatGPT’s tone. Preferences on chat style vary—from person to person and even from conversation to conversation—so we’re introducing more intuitive and effective controls so ChatGPT can better match the tone you want in responses.”
OpenAI previously declared a “code orange” for improving the chatbot, according to The Wall Street Journal. Altman reportedly uses the colors red, orange and yellow to describe the levels of urgency needed for addressing issues. The National News Desk requested comment from OpenAI on Tuesday but didn’t receive a response by the time it published this article.
The Wall Street Journal, citing industry benchmarks, reported last month that Google’s chatbot, Gemini, had become more capable than ChatGPT and other competitors. Altman said in his memo that OpenAI was going to release a new version of its chatbot that would be better than Gemini, though, according to the newspaper.
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