Code Red at OpenAI As The Company Scrambles to Release New "Garlic" Model

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Code Red at OpenAI As The Company Scrambles to Release New "Garlic" Model

Sources say OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently gave one of his famous “code red” directives, essentially telling all staff members to drop other projects and focus their efforts on one thing: releasing a new model.

The new mode, leaks indicate, is codenamed Garlic. It’s intended to take down Google’s Gemini 3, which has been creeping up in benchmarks and besting OpenAI’s GPT-5.1 model recently.

What will Garlic include, when will it launch—and why is OpenAI being forced to work smarter rather than brute-forcing their way to victory?

I cover it all in this video. And I explain why I’m standing in front of Digital Realty’s San Francisco HQ while doing it.