Sam Altman Warns Staff of “Rough Vibes” as Google’s Gemini 3 Pro Surges Ahead

According to The Information, Sam Altman sent an internal memo last month telling OpenAI employees to brace for “rough vibes” as Google’s new Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro models gain momentum.

Key points:

Altman said Google’s breakthroughs — especially in pretraining efficiency — could create “temporary economic headwinds” for OpenAI.

OpenAI has reportedly struggled with similar pretraining issues while scaling GPT-5.

He told staff to stay focused on “very ambitious bets” like automated AI research and synthetic data, even if it means falling behind right now.

The memo also hinted at a new model in development, codenamed “Shallotpeat,” aimed at closing the gap with Google.

Why this matters: It’s unusual to see Altman openly acknowledge competitive pressure. Google’s releases seem to have genuinely rattled OpenAI’s confidence — at least in the short term. But the AI race flips fast, and OpenAI traditionally drops big releases around the holidays… so the vibes may not stay rough for long.