Now it’s OpenAI doing the scrambling. CEO Sam Altman sent a note to his team this week declaring a “code red,” saying that OpenAI needs to re-focus on its most important products in order to keep up with the onslaught of competition from Google’s Gemini and others. The question now is, what does making ChatGPT better actually look like?

On this episode of The Vergecast, David and Nilay discuss the state of ChatGPT, and the big questions facing the AI industry as a whole. But before they get to that, there’s some other news to talk about. Samsung released a trifold phone, which is either awesome or pointless or maybe a little bit of both. Apple’s executive shakeup continues, this time with design boss Alan Dye leaving to set up a design studio at Meta. Is the Dye exit a good thing for Apple, as many are saying? Or is this management turnover a sign that something is wrong at Apple Park? (After we recorded, the company announced even more turnover, too.)

After that, we turn to AI. The questions facing OpenAI, and the rest of the companies betting big on LLMs, are increasingly focused on whether LLMs are even the right technology to deliver what the boosters have promised. Language, after all, is not the same thing as intelligence. But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that this is as good as the tech is ever going to get. What products are left to build? And who’s going to build them?

Finally, in the lightning round, it’s time for another edition of Brendan Carr is a Dummy, plus some notes on Wrapped Week, Hoto and Fanttik, the advent of “dear algo,” and a surprisingly interesting Honeywell thermostat.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, first in gadget and Apple news:

    Samsung’s Z TriFold is official and it looks like a tablet with a phone attached
    Apple’s head of UI design is leaving for Meta
    Apple AI chief steps down following Siri setbacks
    From Daring Fireball: Bad Dye Job

And in code reds:

    OpenAI declares ‘code red’ as Google catches up in AI race
    OpenAI just made another circular deal
    Anthropic’s AI bubble ‘YOLO’ warning
    Anthropic’s racing OpenAI to go public.
    I tested five AI browsers and lost my mind in the process
    The AI boom is based on a fundamental mistake
    From the Dwarkesh Podcast: Ilya Sutskever – We’re moving from the age of scaling to the age of research

And in the lightning round:

    From Ars Technica: FCC boss Brendan Carr claims another victory over DEI as AT&T drops programs
    Spotify Wrapped 2025 turns listening into a competition
    YouTube introduces its own version of Spotify Wrapped for videos
    How Hoto and Fanttik became popular tool companies in the US
    “Dear algo.”
    The Honeywell Home X8S smart thermostat supports Matter and can Ring video doorbell integration