OpenAI’s CEO of applications, Fidji Simo, told staff that Anthropic’s success should act as a 'wake-up call' for the company.
'We are very much acting as if it’s a code red,' Simo said.
Simo stated that senior leaders including CEO Sam Altman and chief research officer Mark Chen are reviewing which projects should be deprioritised.
OpenAI is preparing a major shift in its strategy as the company looks to focus more on coding tools and enterprise productivity. During an all-hands meeting, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, Fidji Simo, told employees that senior leaders including CEO Sam Altman and chief research officer Mark Chen are reviewing which projects should be deprioritised. Staff members are expected to hear more about these decisions in the coming weeks.
Survey‘We cannot miss this moment because we are distracted by side quests,’ Simo told staff last week, according to remarks reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. ‘We really have to nail productivity in general and particularly productivity on the business front.’
Also read: Anthropic lets you use Claude AI with double limits: Check timings, eligibility and how it works
Over the past year, OpenAI introduced several new initiatives. These included the AI video generator Sora, a web browser called Atlas, a hardware device, and e-commerce feature inside ChatGPT. CEO Sam Altman had previously compared this approach to ‘betting on a series of startups’ within the company.
However, the broad strategy also created challenges. Some employees reportedly found it difficult to understand the company’s overall direction, while internal teams had to compete for limited computing resources needed to train and run AI models.
The pressure has also increased because of competition from Anthropic, which has gained traction among businesses and software developers. Its tools such as Claude Code and Cowork focus heavily on coding and enterprise tasks, including AI agents that can perform complex workflows automatically. Unlike OpenAI, Anthropic has avoided expanding into areas such as image and video generation, instead focusing on the enterprise AI market.
Also read: Meta plans to lay off 20% of staff as AI costs rise: Report
Simo told staff that Anthropic’s success should act as a ‘wake-up call’ for the company, stressing that it needs to regain its lead among software developers and enterprise customers.
OpenAI is also trying to regain ground in the coding space. The company recently released a new version of its Codex app along with an updated AI model called GPT 5.4 designed for professional work.
‘We are very much acting as if it’s a code red,’ Simo told staff in the all-hands. ‘I don’t think necessarily declaring codes for everything makes a ton of sense.’
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Ayushi Jain
Ayushi works as Chief Copy Editor at Digit, covering everything from breaking tech news to in-depth smartphone reviews. Prior to Digit, she was part of the editorial team at IANS. View Full Profile
