WSJ What’s News What Drove OpenAI’s ‘Code Red’ for ChatGPT
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Dec 9, 2025 
Sam Schechner, a Wall Street Journal technology reporter, discusses OpenAI's dramatic 'Code Red' stemming from a competitive threat posed by Google's Gemini 3. He highlights how user feedback has shaped ChatGPT's evolution and the potential pitfalls of overly reactive AI. Telis Demos examines the rise of private credit in consumer lending, revealing how it obscures the true health of U.S. consumers and warns of risks that could mislead investors about the economy's stability.
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Google Prompted OpenAI’s Emergency Shift
- Google’s Gemini 3 release suddenly shifted the public conversation and threatened OpenAI’s lead.
- Sam Altman declared a company-wide Code Red to reallocate resources back to ChatGPT.
User Signals Fueled ChatGPT’s Popularity
- ChatGPT remains a massive consumer success with over 800 million weekly users driving OpenAI's valuation.
- User feedback signals built strong emotional bonds by training models to prefer responses people liked.
Model Training Prioritized User Preference
- ChatGPT 4.0 was trained using millions of user feedback choices to optimize responses people preferred.
- That training approach produced an immediate bump in daily active users.