(Bronson Stamp for Sherwood News)

What company’s past reveals the future of OpenAI?

Sherwood asked a baker’s dozen of writers to make their best case for what’ll happen to the most important company of 2024: OpenAI.

Walt Hickey

12/26/24 8:52AM

OpenAI has, in a very short time, catapulted itself from a small operation tinkering in a speculative and math-heavy field to a household name that’s been compared favorably to some of the most lucrative blue-chip companies in the history of American commerce.

This fast trajectory has made the company itself the topic of fascination and speculation, with the ultimate power of its technology, and the ultimate value of its business, the subject of endless discussion and debate. Contemplating the future of AI in general and OpenAI in particular isn’t just a Silicon Valley parlor game but national watercooler chatter. OpenAI is the next Google, some cry — it’ll change the way we use the internet! Others warn it’s the next FTX, an over-hyped scam led by a charismatic founder that’ll go to zero.

Here at Sherwood we wanted to consider the many paths that lay ahead for OpenAI, and we’ve assembled an all-star crew of writers who make their case for what they argue is OpenAI's future. Some see huge returns, others serious peril. In some cases, the tech is transformative on a scale that today we have difficulty even imagining; in others, you’ll hear about a rather boring but extremely lucrative business. And then there’s Taco Bell.

Let the arguments begin:

OpenAI is Visa by Taylor Lorenz
OpenAI is bitcoin by Crystal Kim
OpenAI is Uber by Max Knoblauch
OpenAI is Lyft by J. Edward Moreno
OpenAI is Adobe by Sophia Smith Galer
OpenAI is Pixar by Jon Keegan
OpenAI is Intel by Jeff Wise
OpenAI is IBM by Jack Raines
OpenAI is Microsoft by Ryan Broderick & Adam Bumas
OpenAI is Salesforce by Rani Molla
OpenAI is Napster by Jamie Wilde
OpenAI is Taco Bell by Adam Chandler
OpenAI is Lehman Bros. by Ed Zitron

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on the series from Sherwood News.

Rani Molla38m

Epic scores two victories as “Fortnite” returns to Google Play and appeals court keeps injunction against Apple

“Fortnite” maker Epic Games notched two wins Thursday in its drawn-out battle against Big Tech’s app stores. “Fortnite” returned to the Google Play Store in the US, Reuters reports, as Epic continues working with Google to secure court approval for their settlement.

Meanwhile, a US appeals court partly reversed sanctions against Apple in Epic’s antitrust case, calling parts of the order overly broad, but upheld the contempt finding and left a sweeping injunction in place — keeping pressure on Apple to allow developers to steer users to outside payment options and reduce its tight control over how apps can communicate and monetize on iOS.

So many reasons to drop in this month... and now we're on Google Play in the U.S. too!

Android: https://t.co/Z6pkYqYsRI
iPhone: https://t.co/JNpTVneGMN
PC: https://t.co/CPsjp3XNdo pic.twitter.com/TV9b1ZlqfJ
— Fortnite (@Fortnite) December 11, 2025

Jon Keegan48m

Report: AI-powered toys tell kids where to find matches, parrot Chinese government propaganda

You may want to think twice before buying your kids a fancy AI-powered plush toy.

A new report from NBC News found that several AI-powered kids’ toys could easily be steered to dangerous as well as sexually explicit conversations in a shocking demonstration of the loose safety guardrails in this novel category of consumer electronics.

A report out by the Public Interest Research Group details what researchers found when they bought five AI-powered toys for kids on Amazon. Some of the toys offered instructions on where to find matches and how to start fires.

NBC News also bought some of these toys, and found they parroted Chinese government propaganda, and gave instructions for how to sharpen knives. Some of the toys also discussed inappropriate topics for kids like sexual kinks.

The novel category of AI-powered kids toys is under scrutiny as major AI companies like OpenAI have announced partnerships with toy manufacturers like Mattel(which has yet to release an AI-powered toy).

AI toys for kids talk about sex and issue Chinese Communist Party talking points, tests show

Jon Keegan1h

OpenAI releases GPT-5.2, the “best model yet for real-world, professional use”

After feeling the heat from Google’s recent launch of its powerful Gemini 3 model, OpenAI’s response to its “code red” has been released, reportedly on an accelerated schedule to keep up with the competition.

The company’s new flagship model GPT-5.2 is out, and the company is calling it “the most capable model series yet for professional knowledge work.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it “smartest generally-available model in the world,” and shared benchmarks that showed it achieving higher scores than Gemini 3 Pro, and Anthopic’s Claude Opus 4.5 in some software engineering tests, abstract reasoning, math, and science problems.

In a press release announcing the new model, the company said:

“Overall, GPT‑5.2 brings significant improvements in general intelligence, long-context understanding, agentic tool-calling, and vision—making it better at executing complex, real-world tasks end-to-end than any previous model.”

Introducing GPT-5.2

In a press release announcing the new model, the company said:

Rani Molla2h

Google sinks on a string of bad news

Google is currently down nearly 2% amid a flurry of bad news for the tech giant:

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Google’s much-touted Gemini 3 model “had less of an impact on our metrics than maybe we feared.”
Disney sent Google a cease and desist letter accusing it of infringing Disney’s copyrights after announcing a $1 billion investment in competitor OpenAI.
Waymo recalled basically all of its vehicles — 3,067 — for a software update to fix a high-profile problem they had with driving past stopped school buses.
The AI trade generally is struggling today after Oracle posted underwhelming earnings results yesterday.

Jon Keegan3h

Altman: Gemini 3 had less of an impact than we had feared

There have been a lot “code reds” flying around the AI world recently. But it turns out that the latest, declared by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, may not be as dire as expected.

This morning Altman appeared on CNBC with Disney CEO Bob Iger to discuss Disney’s $1 billion investment in OpenAI. Altman told CNBC that Google’s Gemini 3 has “had less of an impact on our metrics than maybe we feared.”