Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced a new product launch today, sharing an AI-generated image of himself. This comes as OpenAI faces stiff competition from Gemini’s Nano Banana Pro and Chinese AI models in the image generation market.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has teased a new product by the San Francisco-based AI startup, which will make its debut today. Altman, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), shared an AI-generated image of himself that was posted by the OpenAI handle and wrote, “launching something really fun today!”
The announcement by Altman comes as OpenAI is facing pressure in the AI image generator market from not only the likes of Gemini’s Nano Banana Pro but also from Chinese models like Seedream and Qwen, which have made massive strides since OpenAI announced its last update to its image generation and editing model.
Not too long ago, OpenAI GPT-4o’s native image generation abilities had shocked the internet, leading to a series of viral image generation trends, the most famous of which became Ghibli-style images. However, ChatGPT soon lost its crown to Google’s Nano Banana, which was not only much faster than the OpenAI model but also possessed the ability to make precise edits to images and maintain character consistency while adding multiple personalities in a single image.
Google upped the ante just last month when it launched Nano Banana Pro, which runs on its Gemini 3 Pro model. The power of Gemini 3 Pro meant that Nano Banana Pro was better able to understand instructions and take in more nuanced prompts from users. Meanwhile, Google also vastly improved text consistency with Nano Banana Pro and connected the AI model to Google Search. All of this meant that Gemini could not only generate detailed infographics but also do so with very little input from users, even something as simple as writing, “Create the recipe for elaichi tea.”
OpenAI’s code red:
OpenAI had recently issued a ‘code red’ inside the company after facing severe competition in the AI race, particularly from the likes of Gemini and Anthropic. Apart from launching new models, OpenAI also secured a partnership with Disney, which has led to over 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars films being available for generation via Sora and ChatGPT. However, the deal does not permit the use of talent likenesses or voices, meaning users cannot create videos with actor-matched performances.
