OpenAI's Code Red and new 'Garlic' model

PLUS: Anthropic's new Opus 4.5, Google's new AI agents, and a disease-detecting AI from Harvard

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Gen AI Art
December 05, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

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Competition from Google has reportedly prompted OpenAI to declare a 'Code Red'. The company is now pausing other projects to fast-track a new model, codenamed 'Garlic', in a bid to maintain its leadership position.

The secret model is already showing strong performance in internal tests against top rivals. With the AI landscape shifting so quickly, is this reactive strategy enough for OpenAI to stay on top, or does it reveal a new vulnerability?

Today in AI:

  • OpenAI's 'Code Red' and secret 'Garlic' model

  • Anthropic releases Opus 4.5 coding model

  • A Harvard AI that detects rare diseases

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What’s new? OpenAI has reportedly declared a 'Code Red' in response to competition from Google, pausing projects to focus on its core AI while secretly fast-tracking a new model codenamed 'Garlic'.

What matters?

  • The all-hands-on-deck approach comes after Google's Gemini 3.0 topped industry benchmarks, prompting OpenAI to begin pausing non-essential projects like its shopping agent and health tools.

  • OpenAI's countermove is a new model codenamed 'Garlic', which is performing well in internal tests against both Gemini 3 and Anthropic's Opus 4.5.

  • This highlights how quickly AI leadership can be challenged, showing that an early lead means little when competitors can rapidly close the gap with a single powerful release.

Why it matters?

This signals an intense acceleration of the AI arms race, forcing top players to innovate at a breakneck pace. For developers and users, this competition will likely produce more powerful tools faster, but it also underscores the need for platform flexibility.

What’s new? Anthropic just released Claude Opus 4.5, its new flagship model that it claims is the world's top AI for coding tasks.

What matters?

  • The model significantly outperforms competitors in coding, agentic tasks, and computer use, making it a new contender for the best coding model available.

  • It is also more affordable than its predecessor, Claude Opus 4.1, lowering the barrier for developers and businesses to adopt advanced AI.

  • The release includes updates to the entire ecosystem, including Claude Code, Claude in Excel/Chrome, and the Developer Platform. See it in action to understand the new capabilities.

Why it matters?

This release intensifies the competition in specialized AI capabilities, particularly in the lucrative coding and developer tool space. By combining higher performance with lower costs, Anthropic is making powerful AI more accessible for automating complex professional workflows.

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What’s new? Researchers at Harvard Medical School developed an AI model called PopEVE that excels at identifying the genetic variants behind rare diseases.

What matters?

  • PopEVE works by pinpointing genetic variants that are most likely to cause a rare disease.

  • The model already outperforms other leading tools in the space, including Google DeepMind's AlphaMissense.

  • Harvard's team is now moving the model into clinical settings to test its accuracy in diagnosing real patients.

Why it matters?

Diagnosing rare diseases is often a long, difficult journey for patients and doctors. Tools like PopEVE could drastically shorten that timeline, leading to faster treatments and better outcomes.

Everything else in AI

Anthropic hired law firm Wilson Sonsini to prepare for a potential initial public offering, fueling the race against rival OpenAI to be the first major AI lab to hit the public markets.

Anthropic confirmed the authenticity of its leaked 'Soul' document, an internal guide used for training that details Claude's intended personality, ethics, and self-conception.

OpenAI experiments with a 'confessions' concept where models explain how well they followed instructions, aiming to make their outputs more transparent and easier to validate.

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