OpenAI has previously experienced significant turmoil among its top executives and is also facing immense pressure from both new and old competitors. Now, the former Chief Technology Officer, Mira Murati, who left the company, may bring significant pressure to her old employer. Media reports suggest that she is attempting to poach talent from OpenAI to join her own project, at a time when the company's R&D team is already in turmoil. Moreover, Google's previously released "Audio Overview" AI podcast generator, which has unexpectedly become popular on social media as the "Mini GPT," also poses competitive pressure to OpenAI.

Internal Turmoil: Former Executive Attempts to Poach Talent for Her Own Project

The Information reports that after stepping down as Chief Technology Officer, Murati became an advisor to OpenAI. According to two informed sources who spoke to the media, she has been communicating with OpenAI employees, discussing the possibility of joining her next entrepreneurial project, although she has not yet revealed the specifics of this new venture. A spokesperson for OpenAI and a representative for Murati have both declined to comment on this matter.

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It is also uncertain whether Murati will join the startup of former OpenAI Vice President Barret Zoph, start her own company, or join an existing AI development company.

However, researchers may be more receptive to her recruitment efforts. According to three informed sources who spoke to the media, following Liam Fedus's promotion to the head of the later training team, replacing the recently departed Vice President Barret Zoph, OpenAI's R&D team is currently in a state of flux. Two sources told the media that several researchers have already applied for team transfers.

Previously, Zoph had suddenly announced his departure on September 25th, along with Murati and Research Director Bob McGrew. In addition to this, Luke Metz, one of the pioneers in the development of ChatGPT who had worked with Fedus and Zoph on Google's AI team, also announced his resignation last week.

Media reports have previously stated that OpenAI's financial team has been working hard to counter offers from competitors, including a new startup by OpenAI co-founder and former Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever. Analysts believe that, given the behavior of Zoph and McGrew following Murati's resignation, Murati's poaching efforts could further test Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman's personnel management capabilities.

Additional reports indicate that Microsoft's senior artificial intelligence researcher, Bubeck, will be joining OpenAI.External Challenges: Google's "Mini GPT" Accidentally Goes Viral

Last month, Google launched a free AI product that unexpectedly gained rapid popularity on social media. Officially named "Audio Overview," the product allows users to upload source materials (which can range from research papers, magazine articles, to personal diaries) to NotebookLM (Google's experimental note-taking app). Within minutes, it generates a customized podcast.

Media reports suggest that the AI-generated podcasts sound remarkably realistic, hosted by a male and a female voice who engage in a roughly 10-minute conversation explaining relevant concepts. Google has masterfully mimicked the tone of the podcast and the interaction between the hosts, such as one host interjecting to agree or ask questions while the other explains concepts.

According to Steven Johnson, the Editor-in-Chief of NotebookLM, Audio Overview primarily relies on Google's Gemini1.5Pro model. Johnson did not disclose the specific training methods for Audio Overview, but Google's underlying audio model processes subtleties in the host voices, such as a rise in pitch when the host is not entirely sure of the answer. He also stated that the editorial team responsible for Audio Overview has further refined the way AI-generated dialogue scripts are produced.

Raiza Martin, the Product Manager of the NotebookLM team, previously stated that a tweet by Tesla's former AI Director and OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy was the turning point for the feature's popularity. At the end of last month, a clip of NotebookLM's two hosts seemingly realizing they are AI also went viral online.

In one of his tweets, Karpathy wrote that the Audio Overview product made him feel "like ChatGPT."

A spokesperson for NotebookLM stated that since the launch of Audio Overview on September 11th, the daily active users of NotebookLM have increased tenfold, although he did not provide specific data. According to SimilarWeb, NotebookLM received 10.4 million web visits in September, nearly quadrupling from the previous month.

Analysts believe that while these numbers are not yet on par with ChatGPT, for Google, this is a positive sign. Some of Google's previously released AI products, such as conversational AI answers in search and AI image generators in the Gemini chatbot, have been questioned due to errors.