OpenAI Archive

Mar 25, 2026

OpenAI has reportedly finished pretraining its new AI model, codenamed "Spud," CEO Sam Altman told employees in an internal memo, according to The Information. Altman said the company expects to have a "very strong model" in "a few weeks" that can "really accelerate the economy."

"Things are moving faster than many of us expected," Altman wrote. In a related move, Fidji Simo's product organization is being renamed "AGI Deployment." To free up computing capacity for Spud and other priorities, OpenAI will shut down its video app Sora.

Spud may also serve as the foundation for OpenAI's planned desktop "superapp," which would combine ChatGPT, the coding agent Codex, and the browser Atlas. OpenAI needs to close the gap with Anthropic, which has been gaining significant traction with agent-based AI systems for business customers, particularly through Claude Code. OpenAI's Codex and Frontier are still playing catch-up.

Comment Source: The Information

Matthias Bastian

Mar 25, 2026

Update

AI in practice

Disney pulls out of OpenAI partnership after Sora app and API gets killed just months after launch

Matthias Bastian

Mar 25, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is expanding its record financing round by another 10 billion dollars, pushing the total past 120 billion dollars, CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC. The increase had already been flagged when the initial 110 billion dollar round was announced. This could be OpenAI's last private funding round before a potential IPO later this year.

New investors include Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and T. Rowe Price. Microsoft is also participating, with Friar calling the company "an incredible partner." A leaked investor document lists Microsoft as OpenAI's biggest risk factor, which made some headlines but is hardly surprising given how heavily OpenAI still relies on Microsoft for both funding and compute. The dependency runs both ways, though: OpenAI is also an enormous risk for Microsoft.

The partnership has been showing cracks, and two recent moves make that hard to ignore: Microsoft is ramping up efforts to train its own models toward "super intelligence," and it's bringing Anthropic's Cowork technology into Copilot, pulling in tech from OpenAI's biggest B2B rival, of all companies. Microsoft's reliability as a distribution partner for OpenAI models is starting to look shaky.

Comment Source: CNBC

Matthias Bastian

Mar 24, 2026

AI in practice

ChatGPT is turning into a shopping platform with product images, prices, and comparisons, but no checkout

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 24, 2026

Short News

Microsoft has agreed to lease a data center in Abilene, Texas, that was originally built for Oracle and OpenAI, Bloomberg News reports. The facility offers roughly 700 megawatts of capacity and sits right next to the Stargate campus - Oracle and OpenAI's flagship AI infrastructure project.

Microsoft struck the deal with developer Crusoe after both Oracle and OpenAI walked away from negotiations over the site. Back in March, Bloomberg reported that Oracle and OpenAI had abandoned their expansion plans in Texas because financing talks stalled and OpenAI's needs had shifted. Oracle pushed back on those reports at the time, calling claims of delays at the Abilene site inaccurate.

Microsoft, Oracle, OpenAI, and Crusoe have not commented on the new report, according to Reuters.

The lease aligns with Microsoft's broader push to expand its own computing infrastructure. In a recent podcast, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he expects an oversupply of computing capacity and falling prices by 2027 or 2028 as a result of the current data center building boom. Nadella added that he's looking forward to renting capacity cheaply when that happens.

Comment Source: Bloomberg

Matthias Bastian

Mar 24, 2026

Short News

ChatGPT is making it easier to work with uploaded and generated files. Users can now find, reuse, and pull files into chats more quickly. A new toolbar lets you reference recently used files directly, and you can ask ChatGPT questions about files you've already uploaded. The web version also gets a new "Library" tab in the sidebar that gives you a clean overview of all your files.

ChatGPT's new Library tab (left) shows all uploaded files in one place, while the toolbar (top right) lets users quickly reference recent files in any chat. | Image: OpenAI

The feature is rolling out globally to Plus, Pro, and Business users. Users in the EU, Switzerland, and the UK will have to wait a bit longer, but OpenAI says the feature should follow soon.

Comment Source: OpenAI via X

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 24, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is pushing the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to add ChatGPT as an alternative to Google in so-called "choice screens" on Android phones and the Chrome browser. The CMA had previously designated Google as holding "strategic market status" in search and proposed giving users regular alternatives to choose from.

OpenAI argues, according to the Telegraph, that AI chatbots with search functionality should count as search engines, since users increasingly turn to them for queries. ChatGPT has offered web search since 2024 and now has around 900 million weekly users.

Google pushed back, calling the proposed pop-ups disruptive for users. Despite growing AI competition, Google's search revenues climbed 16 percent last year to $63 billion. Google's own AI system Gemini is also growing rapidly and competes directly with ChatGPT.

Comment Source: The Telegraph

Matthias Bastian

Mar 23, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI is offering private equity firms a guaranteed minimum return of 17.5 percent to win them over for joint ventures in the enterprise market. Moreover, participating firms would get early access to new OpenAI models. Reuters broke the story, citing people familiar with the matter. The investment amounts involved are reportedly larger than usual.

The goal is to get private equity firms—investment companies that buy and resell entire businesses—to rapidly roll out OpenAI's AI tools across hundreds of companies in their portfolios. Big names like TPG, Advent, Blackstone, and Permira are reportedly in the mix.

Anthropic is pursuing a similar distribution strategy, but allegedly without offering a comparable return guarantee. That could change now that OpenAI has raised the stakes. The already thin margins of AI companies compared to SaaS peers are likely to take an even bigger hit from these kinds of commitments.

The entire effort appears aimed squarely at Anthropic, which has been gaining ground with enterprise customers recently and currently leads in coding with Claude Code. OpenAI recently announced a renewed focus on the coding business with Codex and a consolidation of its products into a single super app.

Comment Source: Reuters

Matthias Bastian

Mar 22, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI publishes a prompting playbook that helps designers get better frontend results from GPT-5.4

In a new guide, OpenAI explains how front-end designers can get better results from GPT-5.4 when building websites and apps and how to stop the model from falling back on generic designs.

Read full article

Comment

Matthias Bastian

Mar 21, 2026

Short News

The AI lab wants to grow from 4,500 to 8,000 employees by the end of 2026, the Financial Times reports, citing two people familiar with the plans. Most new hires will go into product development, engineering, research, and sales. OpenAI is also bringing on "technical ambassadorship" specialists to help companies integrate its tools.

Much of this hiring likely ties back to OpenAI's Frontier, an agent-based AI platform designed to embed deeply into company workflows, the kind of integration that requires hands-on development at the customer's site. OpenAI has already launched the Frontier Alliance with consulting firms like McKinsey, and partnerships with private equity firms are in the works.

The broader context is OpenAI's push to win enterprise customers, particularly in coding, where Anthropic has been steadily gaining ground. While OpenAI was focused on ChatGPT features, image generation, video models, and all the weird outcomes that came with people actually using this technology, Anthropic quietly carved out a bigger share of the enterprise space. OpenAI is now reportedly building a desktop super app that bundles all its key features into one platform.

Comment Source: Financial Times