OpenAI Archive

Mar 31, 2026

Oracle is laying off thousands of employees to fund its AI infrastructure push. Business Insider broke the story, and CNBC confirmed the cuts through two anonymous sources. Oracle, which had 162,000 employees as of May 2025, declined to comment.

The cuts stem from Oracle's aggressive AI spending, which has pushed the company into debt as cash flow shrinks. Since announcing plans to raise $50 billion in January, the stock has lost roughly a quarter of its value. TD Cowen analysts estimate that eliminating 20,000 to 30,000 positions could free up as much as $10 billion in cash flow.

On an earnings call, co-CEO Clay Magouyrk defended the spending, saying AI hardware demand outpaces supply. He pointed to $553 billion in guaranteed revenue, including a $455 billion order from OpenAI. But whether OpenAI can actually pay up remains unclear; the ChatGPT maker is also burning through cash at a rapid clip.

Oracle's internal termination email cites only "current business needs" without giving a specific reason. Meta is also reportedly planning large-scale layoffs to offset its own massive AI infrastructure costs.

Comment Source: CNBC | Business Insider

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 31, 2026

AI in practice

OpenAI launches a Codex plugin that runs inside Anthropic's Claude Code

Matthias Bastian

Mar 30, 2026

Short News

OpenAI's Sora app saw rapidly declining usage while costing the company around one million dollars a day, according to the Wall Street Journal. After a hyped launch, the app grew to about one million users, but that number quickly dropped to around 500,000 and never recovered.

On top of the shrinking user base, OpenAI ran into copyright issues and growing internal concerns that the cheap, low-quality engagement videos people were generating could damage the OpenAI brand. Sora proved more liability than asset. Development costs piled up too. According to the report, OpenAI canceled training runs for new video models entirely.

The real nail in Sora's coffin was increasing competitive pressure from Anthropic. OpenAI chose to redirect its limited compute toward coding, enterprise, and agent-based AI products, areas with greater long-term business value. Sora fell victim to a strategic pivot: away from complex video generation, toward the most economically promising parts of the business. The Sora team will now focus on world models for robotics. The Sora app shuts down in April, with the API following in September.

Comment Source: Wall Street Journal

Matthias Bastian

Mar 28, 2026

AI and society

Anthropic reportedly views itself as the antidote to OpenAI's "tobacco industry" approach to AI

Anthropic grew out of more than just concern for AI safety—it was born from a bitter power struggle and personal conflict at OpenAI. A report by Sam Altman biographer Keach Hagey reveals how personal slights, rivalries, and strategic disagreements led to what may be the most consequential split in the AI industry.

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Matthias Bastian

Mar 28, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is killing Sora in two stages. The web and app version goes dark on April 26, 2026, with the Sora API following on September 24, 2026. OpenAI is urging users to download their content before the cutoff dates. Videos and images can be exported directly from the Sora library.

The company says it hasn't decided yet whether there will be a final export window after those dates. If one happens, users will get an email heads-up. Once all deadlines pass, user data gets permanently deleted. The shutdown also takes down the sora.chatgpt.com platform, which handled image and video generation. Full details are on OpenAI's help page under "What to know about the Sora discontinuation."

Sora's demise is part of a bigger strategic pivot. OpenAI wants to funnel compute toward coding tools and enterprise customers—a play that mirrors rival Anthropic—and a super app rolling ChatGPT and other tools into one package. Sora will stick around as a research project focused on world models, with the long-term goal of "automating the physical economy."

Comment Source: OpenAI

Matthias Bastian

Mar 27, 2026

Update

AI in practice

Anthropic leak reveals new model "Claude Mythos" with "dramatically higher scores on tests" than any previous model

Update: The leaked draft blog posts have surfaced online, revealing Anthropic’s plans for a new model class above its existing Opus line. The documents show two possible name candidates, details about a deliberately slow release strategy, and a strong focus on cybersecurity.

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Jonathan Kemper

Mar 27, 2026

Short News

OpenAI is adding plugins to Codex that integrate with popular work tools like Slack, Figma, Notion, Gmail, and Google Drive. The plugins go beyond coding - OpenAI says they also help with planning, research, and coordination. Under the hood, plugins bundle predefined prompt workflows ("skills"), app integrations, and MCP server configurations into installable packages, similar to ChatGPT integrations. They work across the Codex app, command line, and IDE extensions. Developers can build their own and distribute them through local or team-wide "marketplaces." An official curated directory is already live, with self-publishing coming soon.

The move is part of OpenAI's broader push into coding tools and enterprise customers, which includes a planned "super app" combining ChatGPT, Codex, and the Atlas browser. Codex now has over 1.6 million weekly active users, with a Windows version shipping just recently.

Comment Source: OpenAI

Matthias Bastian

Mar 26, 2026

AI in practice

Anthropic and OpenAI are both growing fast, but they report revenue very differently, The Information reports. OpenAI's annualized revenue is around $25 billion; Anthropic's is $19 billion. Both calculate this similarly: four weeks of revenue times 13, with Anthropic adding monthly subscriptions times 12.

The key difference is how they handle cloud partners. OpenAI gives 20 percent of revenue to Microsoft and reports the number before that deduction. For Azure cloud sales, it only counts its 20 percent cut. Anthropic does the opposite: It books all cloud sales through AWS, Microsoft, and Google as its own revenue, listing the providers' shares as sales and marketing costs. Anthropic considers itself the primary provider, while OpenAI treats Microsoft as the primary provider for Azure.

Both follow US accounting rules (GAAP), but their numbers are difficult to compare. Anthropic's revenue likely looks higher on paper than it would under the same method. That matters as both companies head toward an IPO.

Comment Source: The Information

Maximilian Schreiner

Mar 26, 2026

Short News

OpenAI has put development of an erotic chatbot on hold indefinitely, the Financial Times reports. The decision comes after employees and investors raised concerns about the societal impact of sexual AI content. OpenAI's well-being advisory board had already unanimously opposed the planned "Adult Mode," with one board member warning that OpenAI risked creating a "sexy suicide coach." The company is also dealing with technical problems - its age verification system misidentified minors as adults in roughly 12 percent of cases. With 100 million underage users per week, that's a significant gap.

The AI company, currently valued at $730 billion, now wants to wait for long-term research on the effects of sexually explicit chats and emotional attachments before moving forward. According to the FT, there have already been internal discussions about scrapping the project entirely. Investors saw a poor risk-reward ratio, and employees questioned whether the project aligned with OpenAI's mission.

In ChatGPT's app code, the project appears under the name "Citron Mode," with planned age verification for users 18 and older. OpenAI is now shifting its focus to productivity tools and a "super app" built around ChatGPT.

Comment Source: FT

Matthias Bastian

Mar 25, 2026

Short News

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