Enterprises leveraging our rapidly digitizing world must also have a robust understanding of how cyber threats are evolving.

AI deepfakes are already becoming too convincing to be easily spotted by common sense approaches. Malicious actors are using AI to find vulnerabilities and to make their attacks harder to detect. And AI systems themselves pose security risks. Research by Foundry shows that security and privacy are the most pressing ethical issues around generative AI deployments.

Down the road, quantum computing promises immense power and capabilities for businesses, but it will also be used by adversaries, especially to break encryption.

And further out, technologies still in the labs, such as DNA-based data storage, cybernetics and bio-hacking present their own challenges to security and data protection.

These are just some of the ways future technologies put enterprise security at risk.

shutterstock/Gorgev

Over the horizon

According to Martin Krumböck, CTO for cybersecurity at T-Systems, security teams can form a clearer view of emerging threats, by dividing them into three timescales, or “horizons”. “There’s always something changing in security,” he says.

Classical infrastructure security is in the “here and now”, and an immediate priority. And too many enterprises still have gaps in cloud security and are not yet ready for AI.

“We are seeing very quick business adoption of AI,” Krumböck explains. “At the same time, people are ignoring the risks. But the risks are already here.”

Deep fakes, used for CEO and CFO fraud, are one example. “In the past, we could mitigate that with good training,” Krumböck says. “Now, the deep fakes are getting so good that all that training is thrown out of the window.”

Other AI threats include attacks on training data for large language models (LLMs), prompt injections and direct attacks on models themselves. “But it is not at the forefront of thinking yet,” he warns.

CISOs and CSOs, then, need to be aware of the risks of AI. But they need to juggle this with monitoring longer-term threats.

“Further over the horizon, there are issues that will become important in security,” says Krumböck. “The shift to post-quantum cryptography isn’t about responding to a threat today, but about preparing for tomorrow. Particularly against long-term risks like ‘harvest-now, decrypt-later’ attacks.” Threats to blockchain technology are another medium-term risk.

It’s worth at least being aware of longer term risks posed by emerging disciplines like  DNA-based computing technology, where the DNA molecules themselves perform computational processes.

“DNA storage becomes a huge information security risk because it’s so small and can be easily implanted somewhere or used to smuggle data out,” says Krumböck. “It sounds like sci-fi right now, but it might become a reality.”

Back to the future

Clearly, security and IT leaders need to plan for emerging threats and inform their boards.

One trusted method is to test new technologies through small trials. This helps understand the organization’s risk appetite, alongside the benefits of innovation.

Few enterprises, though, can employ dedicated teams of security researchers and futurists to assess far-off risks. But organizations can work with their security partners, leverage their expertise and scale to look over the horizon.

As one of the largest enterprises in its sector, Deutsche Telekom and T-Systems have that scale. “That, in itself, puts a huge target on our backs, and we need to defend our own telecommunications network day in day out, and protect our end customers,” Krumböck explains.

This allows T-Systems to invest forward-looking security research, and crucially, translate that intelligence into information and advice that boards can understand, and act on.

Want to secure AI initiatives? Start with this e-book.

Need to rethink comprehensive security? Check out this guide.

Source:: Computer World

By Hisan Kidwai Asus’s Zenbook lineup, as many of you might already know, is the flagship series, catering to…
The post Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (AMD) Review: Gorgeous Display Meets Ryzen Power appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Moinak Pal Health Connect is evolving beyond fitness, with signs of medical, lifestyle, and symptom tracking that could make Android health data simpler and more unified.
The post Google Health Connect is expanding to track symptoms, alcohol intake, and more appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Peter C. Horan Trending Fowrard: Stickerbox uses it’s own ‘safe’ AI to give kids creative control – and the founders promise multiple guardrails to protect children.
The post AI toys are getting scary – but this small red box promises a fix appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

OpenAI has released GPT-5.2, claiming significant gains in the AI model’s ability to complete real-world business tasks to an “expert level” compared to GPT-5.1, released in November.

The new model, available in Instant, Thinking, and Pro performance tiers, offers major improvements across a range of benchmarks, the company said.

Using OpenAI’s GDPval benchmark, which compares the model’s ability to complete 44 different business tasks to the same standards as human experts, GPT-5.2 matched or exceeded human users in 70.9% of tests, compared to GPT-5.1’s 38.8% across the Instant (basic), Thinking (deeper reasoning), and Pro (research-grade) versions.

To illustrate these advances, OpenAI said that GPT-5.2 Thinking could fully format a workforce planning spreadsheet, while on GPT-5.1, the equivalent output assembled the same spreadsheet correctly, but in a more basic state that lacked formatting.

“We designed GPT‑5.2 to unlock even more economic value for people; it’s better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long contexts, using tools, and handling complex, multi-step projects,” said OpenAI.

GPT-5.2 also showed a mixture of gains across other important benchmarks, including ARC-AGI-1/ARC-AGI-2 (general problem solving), and SWE-Bench Pro/SWE-Bench Verified (real-world software tasks).

“For everyday professional use, this translates into a model that can more reliably debug production code, implement feature requests, refactor large codebases, and ship fixes end-to-end with less manual intervention,” the company said.

GPT-5.2 has begun rolling out to ChatGPT users, starting with the paid plans. Subscription pricing is unchanged. For API access, GPT-5.2 is priced at $1.75 per one million input tokens, and $14 per one million output tokens, with a 90% discount on cached inputs. Despite this being more expensive than GPT-5.1, OpenAI claimed the model’s greater efficiency meant that “the cost of attaining a given level of quality ended up less expensive due to GPT‑5.2’s greater token efficiency.”

Code red

For OpenAI, the appearance of the new version so soon after the last one represents an important acceleration in its GPT-5 model development. In early December, CEO Sam Altman sent a ‘code red’ emergency memo to OpenAI employees warning that without rapid development of GPT-5, the company risked falling behind Google’s increasingly capable Gemini 3 model

Since then, things appear to have stabilized, with Altman telling CNBC this week that Gemini’s advances had been less significant than first feared, and that the code red state would end by January. However, a noticeable omission from the web announcement was any comparison between GPT-5.2’s performance and that of Gemini 3. Reportedly, a separate press briefing offered only a limited comparison.

Maria Sukhareva, a principal AI analyst at Siemens, questioned OpenAI’s use of benchmarks more generally. “It [GPT-5.2] claims to beat GDPVal, but this is a benchmark developed by OpenAI for OpenAI. Technically there are no obstacles for OpenAI to fine-tune their model for those 44 tasks, while completely failing on everything else,” she pointed out.

“Essentially, the numbers reported by GPT-5.2 are meaningless where one cannot see what data they trained the model on. GPT-5.2 suffers from all the same problems as previous models,” she argued. Sukhareva’s deeper dive on GPT-5.2 benchmarking can be found on her Substack.

Rachid ‘Rush’ Wehbi, CEO of e-commerce platform Sell The Trend, has tested GPT-5.2 under real-world conditions. “GPT-5.2 is doing a lot better when it comes to keeping its train of thought going for longer periods and not falling apart when you throw some layered context at it. For companies, that’s way more important than making a tiny bit of an improvement on some potentially inconsequential benchmark,” he said.

“Benchmarks are fine for showing you’ve made some sort of progress, but they don’t tell you if your model is going to actually hold up in the real world. GPT-5.2 is a step forward, but enterprise AI is still a work in progress.”

According to Bob Hutchins, founder of AI literacy company Human Voice Media, “most enterprise frustration with AI up until now is from the last 20% — the formatting, the constraints, the handoffs. GPT-5.2 shows progress there.” His advice for enterprises was, “ignore the launch noise and run a disciplined trial. GPT-5.2 is a meaningful step. It does not close the gap between promise and practice, it narrows it.”

For example, benchmarking by agentic AI company Vectara’s Hallucination Evaluation Model, found that, while GPT-5.2 has improved on that front, it still lags some competitors.

“OpenAI still has some way to go in improving hallucination performance,” commented Ofer Mendelevitch, Vectara head of developer relations. “GPT-5.2-low-thinking is best in the GPT family so far, ranking 33rd on our leaderboard with an 8.4% hallucination rate. However, ChatGPT 5.2 notably trails DeepSeek V3.2, which ranks 23rd with a hallucination rate of 6.3%. For comparative purposes, Gemini 3’s grounded hallucination rate in our testing was 13.6%, with Grok 4.1 coming in at 17.8%.”

This article originally appeared on InfoWorld.

Source:: Computer World

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the Justice Department to challenge state artificial intelligence laws the administration says threaten US competitiveness.

In his order, Trump is taking issue with state “requiring entities to embed ideological bias within models” — although the example he gave of embedding bias was “a new Colorado law banning ‘algorithmic discrimination’” that, he said, could “force AI models to produce false results in order to avoid a ‘differential treatment or impact’ on protected groups.”

The order establishes an AI Litigation Task Force within the Justice Department to challenge state laws on grounds they are “unconstitutional, pre-empted, or otherwise unlawful.” The order directed the Commerce Department to publish an evaluation of state AI laws that conflict with national policy priorities and to withhold Broadband Equity Access and Deployment funding from states with such laws.

The US Federal Trade Commission will be required to “explain the circumstances under which State laws that require alterations to the truthful outputs of AI models are pre-empted by the Federal Trade Commission Act’s prohibition on engaging in unfair and deceptive acts, while the Federal Communications Commission will consider adopting “a Federal reporting and disclosure standard for AI models that pre-empts conflicting State laws,” according to the text of the Executive Order.

The order also calls on the administration’s Special Advisor for AI and Crypto to recommend legislation to establish a “uniform Federal policy framework for AI that pre-empts State AI laws that conflict with the policy set forth in this order,” although it will still allow states to set their own laws on AI child safety protections, data center infrastructure, and procurement of AI services.

The order targets a growing patchwork of state regulations. States introduced nearly 700 AI bills in 2024, with 113 enacted. Colorado’s AI Act takes effect in June 2026, requiring developers to disclose information about high-risk AI systems and conduct impact assessments. California’s SB 53 requires transparency about AI use in employment decisions. Texas’s TRAIGA, effective January 2026, sets disclosure requirements for generative AI in contracts.

Compliance costs remain for EU sales

The order aims to simplify domestic compliance, but US companies selling AI products and services in European markets will still need to comply with the EU AI Act, which applies to any AI system used by people in EU member states.

“A deregulated US posture can make American AI firms faster at home, but it does not make them freer abroad,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research.

The EU regulation, which entered into force in August 2024, classifies AI systems by risk level and requires conformity assessments, transparency obligations, and human oversight for high-risk applications including hiring tools, credit scoring systems, and law enforcement applications.

That could be an obstacle for products conceived under a different set of laws, said Enza Iannopollo, vice president principal analyst at Forrester, said, “These requirements cannot always be added as an afterthought. Many AI systems need safety, integrity, and ethical safeguards built in by design.”

And, said Gogia, “The EU AI Act is not just a legal framework, it is a procurement filter.” Enterprise procurement teams, internal audit functions, and insurers impose requirements similar to EU standards regardless of local regulation, he said. Multinationals standardize internal AI governance to avoid building separate compliance systems for different markets.

Enterprises face increased liability exposure

The order’s approach of pushing to remove state laws it considers pre-empted by an existing federal law on “unfair and deceptive acts,” and drafting legislation that would, if passed, pre-empt other state AI laws, leaves enterprises navigating increased legal uncertainty, according to analysts.

Without regulation establishing common standards, companies must provide separate assurances to each customer and business partner, increasing transaction costs and legal uncertainty, Iannopollo said.

 “Using AI to power products, services, or business models creates liability across multiple fronts: employment law, consumer protection, privacy, and sector-specific regimes such as banking or critical infrastructure. When AI systems lack built-in safeguards, those liabilities become harder and costlier to manage,” she said.

Technology trade group NetChoice sees the order helping ensure America leads in AI innovation. “Startups and small businesses will greatly struggle to create and compete with a 50-state patchwork of red tape,” said Patrick Hedger, NetChoice director of policy, in a written statement.

Brad Carson, president of Americans for Responsible Innovation, a political action committee lobbying for a thoughtful governance framework for rapidly advancing technologies, said in a written statement that the order “directly attacks the state-passed safeguards that we’ve seen vocal public support for over the past year, all without any replacement at the federal level.”

The order follows Trump’s July 2025 AI Action Plan, which called for removing regulatory barriers to AI development. Trump revoked President Biden’s October 2023 AI executive order in January 2025.

Source:: Computer World

By Omair Khaliq Sultan If you’ve been thinking about getting into 3D printing but don’t want a giant machine taking over your desk, this deal is right in the sweet spot. The Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D printer is on sale for $199.99, which is $50 off its regular $249.99 price. That puts it in very tempting territory for […] The post Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D printer drops to $199.99 in new deal appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Deepti Pathak Apple has officially confirmed that Apple Fitness+ will launch in India on December 15. This is…
The post Apple Fitness+ Now Available in India: Key Features & Price appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Deepti Pathak Every time a new smartphone hits the market, one question automatically pops up: Is it really…
The post OPPO Find X8 vs Find X9: What’s Changed appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince says in a new interview with Wired that the company has blocked more than 416 billion AI bot requests since July 1, 2025. It’s all part of the company’s initiative to help customers stop AI bots from scraping their content without payment.

According to Prince, AI represents a platform shift that will change the entire internet business model, and Cloudflare wants to protect an open ecosystem where both small and large players can operate on a level playing field.

He particularly criticizes Google for merging its search and AI crawlers. This means that anyone who blocks AI training also disappears from Google’s search index. Prince says Google is abusing its dominant position here.

“It’s almost like a Marvel movie — the hero of the last film becomes the villain of the next one,” Prince told Wired. “Google is the problem here. It is the company that is keeping us from going forward on the internet, and until we force them — or hopefully convince them — that they should play by the same rules as everyone else and split their crawlers up between search and AI, I think we’re going to have a hard time completely locking all the content down.”

Prince hopes that industry pressure and possible future regulation will lead to new and fairer business models where AI companies pay for licensed content instead of scraping it for free.

Source:: Computer World

By Viviane Mendes When OpenAI announced its new shopping search capabilities, I took the news with a grain of salt (perhaps the whole shaker). For the past decade, we have watched the slow evolution of traditional search engines. What began as tools for pure information discovery gradually morphed into ecosystems dominated by SEO-optimized content and sponsored results. My initial fear with ChatGPT’s update was simple: Are we seeing the beginning of a similar shift? Is the purity of the “reasoning engine” being diluted by the necessity of commerce? After testing the new shopping integration, the results suggest that we are at a pivotal…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Omair Khaliq Sultan If you’ve been eyeing Samsung’s top-end smartwatch but choking at the price, this is a much easier way in. This renewed Galaxy Watch Ultra gives you the 47mm titanium design, LTE connectivity, AI-powered insights, and all the fitness and health tracking you’d expect, for $249.99 instead of roughly $500. The catch is simple: it’s renewed, […] The post This Galaxy Watch Ultra deal drops a flagship smartwatch to $249.99 appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Omair Khaliq Sultan If you’ve been curious about AR glasses but didn’t want to spend headset-level money, this is the moment to pay attention. The XREAL One AR Glasses take whatever you’re watching or playing and turn it into a virtual 147-inch 1080p screen at up to 120Hz, floating right in front of you. Right now they’re $399.99, […] The post Xreal One AR glasses drop to $399.99 and bring a 147-inch screen to your face appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

At Apple, maintaining the highest possible security and privacy across its platforms starts with the standards it supports. 

The company, known for its tight integration between hardware and software, deliberately takes choices that help it promote those priorities — even at the cost of integration with third-party software and services.

It is also true to say that Apple continues to improve and iterate its enterprise offerings. “It’s so great to see the momentum [around Macs in the enterprise],” Jeremy Butcher, who handles business product marketing at Apple, told me last month. “As you know, it’s very intentional.”

Understand the future, look to the past

Apple’s decision to remove kernel extension (kext) support back in 2020 is a perfect illustration. Way back then, the company decided kexts were a potential security problem and gave warning of its intention to remove support from macOS. Some developers complained at the removal — and then we later had the huge CrowdStrike disaster on Windows, which effectively justified Apple’s decision.

While the complaints at Apple’s decision certainly generated volume, and while it is true that the removal of kext support gave some developers problems, the result was improved security across Apple’s ecosystem.

Apple thinks the same way when it comes to identity management across its platforms. That’s because it knows identity is critical to evolving endpoint security architecture, and to build that, you must secure your platforms on the strongest available foundations — particularly for products that support its enterprise presence.

Identity, it’s the answer, don’t you see?

At WWDC 2025, Apple improved Platform Single Sign On, bringing authentication with PSSO into Setup Assistant during Automated Device Enrollment. This hit the market with macOS 26 only a few weeks ago. However, to enjoy this implementation, identity providers must adopt a narrow number of modern frameworks, such as OAuth or OIDC. The idea behind this is that for Identity Providers (IdPs, much used in enterprise security) to deliver optimized platform support across Macs, they must support the latest frameworks. 

That means they can’t rely on custom stacks, as Apple can’t necessarily ensure their security, which means they must support Apple’s Extensible SSO frameworks to deliver seamless sign-on. 

The principle is that if you want to deploy the best possible Apple user experiences, you must align with the company’s decisions around supported frameworks.

Transition is an opportunity

This may all sound a little unfair, but Apple’s focus isn’t on being fair to IdPs, it’s about delivering consistently secure experiences for its users, and, as CrowdStrike showed, strong security cannot exist without strong foundations.

This can be tough news for some businesses, particularly those still enduring the slow but inevitable migration away from their legacy platforms. During that transition it is inevitable some companies will seek a middle ground between Apple’s expression of SSO and the needs of their legacy platforms, even if Apple offers better experiences. Given the company’s track record for making solid security decisions, it seems to me likely to only be a matter of time until IdPs that don’t currently support Apple’s chosen APIs will end up doing so.

Where we are today on that journey is an opportunity, of course. Many in the Apple enterprise focused MDM space will reach out to companies at this point in their transition with compromise solutions that give some of what they need in terms of Apple SSO while also handling noncompliant tech. 

That’s just good business. It’s a profit center for them and can also be seen as a positive reflection of the vibrancy of Apple’s wider enterprise ecosystem and its ability to shape itself to meet ever-emerging enterprise needs. 

Apple’s flexible ecosystem

There’s always going to be money to be made bridging the gap between the central Apple experience and third-party platforms, software, and services. That’s OK, of course, as it means the core Apple experience is maintained, and users like you and I can continue to rely on the platform delivering the best possible security experience. 

Apple’s decision to limit identity provider support to a narrow number of modern frameworks is causing consternation. But, eventually, most of those IdPs will dig a little deeper in their development investment and build solutions Apple can accept — it is important to note that the current macOS that supports recent changes in Apple’s implantation has only been available for a matter of weeks. While we wait for them to catch up, there are plenty of Apple partners ready to help bridge the gap. 

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe. Also now on Mastodon.

Source:: Computer World

By Shikhar Mehrotra Google is rolling out a massive upgrade to Chrome on desktop, integrating Gemini AI and native AI Mode tools directly into the browser to deliver smarter search, contextual insights, and automatic threat detection.
The post Google turns Chrome into a native AI browser with Gemini-powered tools appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

Reading between the lines of recent Counterpoint data, it looks likely that six of the top 10 smartphones sold worldwide next summer will be iPhones. That’s because by mid-summer, the company is expected to introduce its first ever folding iPhone — along with an improved version of the highly affordable and popular e-series iPhone. The schedule isn’t exact, but follows speculation earlier this year that Apple intends on hosting two big iPhone reveals each year rather than one.

The first device, while expected to be expensive, is also predicted to sell incredibly well, while the updated “e” series phone will expand the company’s reach into the mid-range smartphone markets. 

High hopes

We know Apple has high hopes for the iPhone fold because it has allegedly placed orders for millions of the Samsung-made displays it intends to use in the devices; most analysts (including IDC) expect the devices to compete very strongly against Samsung’s own range of foldables. 

Apple has allegedly also developed a process that creates much more resilient foldable displays with an invisible crease, so it’s plausible to expect that Samsung might also benefit from a chance to build better folding screens for its own devices. (That would very much depend on the terms of the manufacturing deal between the two partners.)

One big iPhone reveal or two, what does seem to be the case is that by this time next year, Apple will have not one, not two, but as many as six different new iPhone models. These new devices will be supplemented by continuing sales of earlier-generation phones, meaning the company will be selling into market segments extending across the mid-range to the premium device categories. 

Apple Intelligence Plus

All six will support whatever Apple Intelligence the company ships next year, which — for all the waiting — will almost certainly end up being state-of-the-art, with particular advantage for use at the edge. 

In the event all the stars align, smartphone shoppers will be able to put their hands on an AI-capable Apple smartphone equipped with world-class mobile processors and top-tier performance on lower-than-industry-standard memory requirements.

The tendency toward being frugal with memory through optimized device performance will give Apple a second advantage in manufacturing costs per unit. This will be a big market advantage as memory costs spiral; while that suggests price increases in the low-, mid-, and top-tier smartphone sectors in the coming 12 months, Apple just needs to hold steady to its existing price structure to seem more affordable than ever in relative terms.

Consider the trend

With all this in mind, consider fresh Counterpoint data for the top 10 smartphones in Q3 25. Apple is consistently well represented in this list every quarter and we already know (because everyone keeps telling us) that the iPhone 17 range is doing incredibly well. 

That’s confirmed by Counterpoint’s data for the third quarter, which includes the iPhone 17 Pro Max — even though it was only available for a few days during the period. It also features four other iPhones (16, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max, and 16e, in that order) occupying the first four slots on the list. So for the quarter, iPhone models occupied five of the top 10 slots. 

That was then, but by the same time next year we can reasonably anticipate Apple will have introduced at least two more models, and might have recently upgraded the rest. If that’s the case, it’s reasonable to think the 17e and iPhone Fold will both seize slots in next year’s top 10, while its other models continue to hold the line. 

Result? iPhones are likely to be selling strongly in part because of their relative affordability in contrast to competitors in a business environment constrained by memory component price increases. 

Waking up slowly

This realization is likely behind a range of very recent analyst upgrades on Apple stock from CLSA, Needham, Citi,Wedbush, Evercore, and more. Who knew that going slow on AI infra costs, while going high on memory optimization and performance per watt ,was going to become such an industry advantage? 

So, what’s the significance for enterprise IT? 

That’s simple: it means employee choice schemes will continue to favor Apple technology, which must be reflected in your purchasing, deployment, and support decisions. It also means lots of people in the C-suite will probably want folding iPhones in 2026 as a prelude for the 20th-anniversary iPhone the following year.

Follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky, LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Source:: Computer World

By Shikhar Mehrotra OpenAI has launched its first official certification courses, offering structured AI training for workers and educators through the OpenAI Academy and Coursera.
The post OpenAI launches its first certification courses to upskill workers and educators appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By John McCann From new TVs, auto tech, and computing announcements, to AI, drones and robots, the world’s biggest consumer technology show has it all.
The post CES 2026 is almost here, as a veteran of the show here’s what you need to know appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Hisan Kidwai When it comes to smartphones, it’s the expensive ones that get the most media coverage, like…
The post OPPO A6x Review: Nails the Basics Under Budget appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

Three years ago, OpenAI jumpstarted the generative AI revolution when it released ChatGPT, and the world hasn’t been the same since. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in AI, OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman became the face of AI, and billion-dollar AI companies seem to be minted at will.

As an early investor in OpenAI, Microsoft has been changed as much as any company by the genAI revolution. The tech giant’s value has skyrocketed to between $3 trillion and $4 trillion depending on the day, and it’s become the premiere AI firm in the world.

But now all that may change. On December 1 Altman sent out a memo to OpenAI employees declaring a “Code Red” emergency and focusing all company efforts on improving ChatGPT. The reason? Google’s newly released Gemini 3 model beat the pants off GPT-5.1, the current version of the large language model (LLM) behind ChatGPT, in just about every benchmark test.

It’s clear the future will be dire for OpenAI if Gemini continues to best ChatGPT. Not so clear are the effects on Microsoft, which uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 and GPT-5 models to power its own  Copilot chatbot. To better understand what they might be, we’ll first take a look at how Google’s latest Gemini release stacks up against ChatGPT.

Battle of the LLMs

Analysts point to a variety of ways in which Gemini 3 bests GPT. Mayank Kejriwal, a principal scientist at the USC Information Sciences Institute, says Gemini 3 has seen the greatest leap in capability this year, while GPT and other LLMs saw only “incremental updates.”

Kejriwal told Business Insider that the latest version of Gemini is well ahead of GPT on the LMArena leaderboard, in which users rate the accuracy and comprehensiveness of chatbots in a number of arenas including text, text-to-image, and search. Gemini 3 is number 1 overall, while GPT-5.1 is far behind at number 6.

Google has released a wide variety of specific benchmarks that show how Gemini has surpassed GPT-5.1. Altman’s declaration of a Code Red in response indicates that this is not mere hype.

And Google immediately embedded Gemini 3 across its core products, including search. Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, said that integrating Gemini directly into Google Search is one of the most important shifts in the AI enterprise market in the last year.

“This is not an AI feature layered on top of search,” he told Computerworld. “It is a fundamental rewrite of the global information distribution engine that billions rely on every day. For enterprises, this marks a decisive moment where AI is no longer a separate capability but the default interpreter of user intent, workflow context, and knowledge retrieval.”

What does this mean for Microsoft?

It’s clear this is all bad news for OpenAI. But what does it mean for Microsoft?

For a start, the news about Google’s breakthrough isn’t as dangerous for Microsoft as it would have been if it had happened a year ago. Back then, Microsoft was almost completely dependent on OpenAI. But the company has taken big steps to augment and even replace GPT as its go-to genAI.

These intentions became clear when Microsoft hired prominent AI leader Mustafa Suleyman to head up its new AI division in March 2024. Suleyman is a co-founder and former head of Applied AI at the AI company DeepMind, which was bought by Google.

A year and a half later, Microsoft launched its first homegrown LLMs, which ultimately may augment or even replace GPT as Copilot’s brains. It also made a deal with OpenAI competitor Anthropic to power parts of Microsoft 365 Copilot, the enterprise version of the chatbot that integrates with Microsoft 365 apps. That deal fixes one of Copilot’s main problems — its Excel capabilities are exceedingly weak, while those of Anthropic’s Claude model are much better.

That’s just the beginning. Eventually, Microsoft may take a “best-of-breed” approach that relies on multiple LLMs, not just GPT, to power Copilot.

Suleyman recently announced a new direction for Microsoft’s AI plans that go well beyond today’s chatbots. He calls it “Humanist Superintelligence,” and it’s more than just an empty slogan. He says it will “solve real concrete problems and do it in such a way that it remains grounded and controllable. We are not building an ill-defined and ethereal superintelligence; we are building a practical technology explicitly designed only to serve humanity.”

In practical terms, that means not one-size-fits-all chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, but instead a series of AI-based technologies, each pointed at solving an important problem and aimed at bettering people’s lives. The first two to be rolled out will be for medicine and improving energy efficiency.

The Google enterprise threat

All that being said, Gemini’s emergence as the world’s premier chatbot does present potentially serious problems for Microsoft. Microsoft 365 Copilot, which requires an add-on subscription, hasn’t been adopted in enterprises the way the company had hoped. A year ago, Microsoft announced that almost 70% of Fortune 500 companies were using Microsoft 365 Copilot. But many of those companies were using it in pilot programs, not for enterprise-wide use.

It appears that may still be the case. Gartner has warned that 47% of IT leaders have no confidence or are not very confident in being able to manage security and access risk in Copilot. An MIT report, The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025, found that 95% of genAI pilots fail — and most enterprise genAI pilots are for Copilot.

If Gemini proves to be a big improvement over Copilot, enterprises may start turning to Google Workspace and abandoning Microsoft 365. That would have far more serious consequences for Microsoft than just lost revenue for one product. Once Google gains deep relationships with an increasing number of enterprises, it could supplant other Microsoft products in them as well, notably Azure. Google could then eventually overtake Microsoft as the world leader in AI.

The upshot

None of this is a done deal, of course. GenAI models typically leapfrog one another, so don’t be surprised if the next version of GPT — and therefore Copilot — will perform better than Gemini.

But it is the first time that Microsoft’s dominance in AI has been challenged. So it may well be time for Microsoft to announce its own Code Red.

Source:: Computer World