It seems that the endgame of OpenAI may have come to a close with Sam Altman's return to the company, but this controversy has caused significant damage. During Altman's absence, the company underwent major changes, with competitors busy poaching its clients and extending olive branches to its employees.

During this tumultuous period, ChatGPT and its API service experienced downtime issues, forcing many users to seek alternative open-source options such as Anthropic and Cohere. Nevertheless, OpenAI's team quickly resolved this problem.

Multiple reports indicate that over 100 of OpenAI's clients have begun negotiations with competitors such as Google, Amazon, and Anthropic and Cohere, which are valued at billions of dollars under Oracle. In addition, a large number of OpenAI clients are considering transitioning to Microsoft's Azure service, attracted by the availability of OpenAI models and similar alternatives.

On the other hand, executives from Salesforce and NVIDIA are attempting to recruit OpenAI employees. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff stated that Salesforce will provide full cash and equity OTE matching for any OpenAI researchers who have submitted their resignations, encouraging them to immediately join Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team led by Silvio Savarese.

Competitors Smell Opportunity

To challenge OpenAI and attract its clients, competitors have announced continuous updates.

Yesterday, Anthropic launched Claude 2.1, claiming its 200K context length. Its performance surpasses OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo, which is equipped with 128K context and significantly reduces model hallucination rates, system prompts, and introduces a beta feature. Morgan Stanley, one of OpenAI's earliest clients, is currently in contact with Anthropic.

Meanwhile, Oracle's billion-dollar project Cohere has introduced new fine-tuning capabilities and an updated user interface. The new interface includes a testing ground for users to experiment with and validate fine-tuned models. Additionally, it provides a pricing calculator, empowering users to make informed decisions about fine-tuning costs from the start.

When OpenAI launched the GPT Store at DevDay, Langchain's existence was questioned, but now it has suddenly revived and announced a series of announcements. For example, one of Langchain's products, Dream, allows users to build fully functional web applications and components using an AI no-code tool through natural language, similar to what GPT Builder does.

Furthermore, it has launched the "GPT-Crawler template," which facilitates the easy construction of website chatbots.

One of OpenAI's founders, Elon Musk, has recently intensified efforts through xAI's Grok, a chatbot developed by Musk's team in just four months. He announced that access to Grok will gradually open in stages based on the registration date for X Premium+. Additionally, Grok will be usable within the X app.

OpenAI is Extremely Fortunate

Despite the turmoil, OpenAI's team has managed to maintain a lead over its competitors. Amidst the chaos, they released a new update for ChatGPT, allowing users to interact and receive responses through voice instead of text.

More importantly, based on the latest developments, it appears that no OpenAI employees plan to leave now that Altman has returned and OpenAI is secure. Greg Brockman posted a photo of the OpenAI team on X as a guarantee.

However, according to the agreement, Altman's arrival means that neither he nor Brockman will serve on the company's board of directors. Altman has also promised an internal investigation into the actions that led to the board's decision to remove him.

Nevertheless, there are still many mysteries surrounding why Sam Altman rejoined OpenAI and the details behind his return. In the midst of the entire OpenAI saga, one thing is certain: companies that rely solely on one provider have learned a crucial lesson.