Sam Altman on GPT-6: ‘People want memory’
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, pictured, speaks with SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son at an event in Tokyo on Feb. 3, 2025.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
GPT-5 just launched. GPT-6 is already on the way.
That’s the message OpenAI CEO Sam Altman delivered to reporters in San Francisco last week, offering a rare glimpse into the company’s evolving product road map, as well as its missteps.
Altman didn’t give a release date for his company’s next artificial intelligence model, but he made clear that GPT-6 will be different and that it will arrive faster than the gap between GPT-4 and GPT-5. It won’t just respond to users but will adapt to them, and allow people to create chatbots that mirror personal tastes.
He said he sees memory as the key for making ChatGPT truly personal. It needs to remember who you are — your preferences, routines and quirks — and adapt accordingly.
“People want memory,” Altman said. “People want product features that require us to be able to understand them.”
He said OpenAI has been working closely with psychologists to help shape the product, measuring how people feel while tracking well-being over time. The company hasn’t made that data public, but Altman indicated it might.
He also said that future versions of ChatGPT would comply with a recent executive order from the Trump administration that requires AI systems used by the federal government to be ideologically neutral and customizable
“I think our product should have a fairly center-of-the-road, middle stance, and then you should be able to push it pretty far,” Atlman said. “If you’re like, ‘I want you to be super woke’ — it should be super woke.”
He added that if a user wanted the model to be conservative, it should also reflect that as well.
Altman’s comments about GPT-6 follow a rocky rollout of GPT-5. Users took to social media to complain about the model being colder, less connected and less helpful than the prior version.
“I like the new one much better,” he said, acknowledging that the rollout was mishandled. He noted that OpenAI quietly pushed a tone update to GPT-5 that’s “much warmer.”
While Altman called enhanced memory his favorite feature launched this year, he said there are privacy concerns, particularly because temporary memory isn’t encrypted. That means sensitive information could potentially be exposed without stronger safeguards. Altman confirmed that encryption “very well could be” added, though there’s no timeline yet.
Queries involving legal or medical information, he said, need to be treated with adequate privacy protections that aren’t in place today.
“It’s in society’s interest for people to get good medical advice … good legal advice,” he said. “And if you can get better versions of those from AI, you ought to be able to have the same protection for the same reason we decided you could get them from a doctor or a lawyer.”
He’s looking to the future and brain-computer interfaces. Altman said he finds “neural interfaces a cool idea” and imagines being able to “think something and have ChatGPT respond.”
“There are a few areas adjacent to AI that I think are worth us doing something, and this is one of them,” he said, adding that he’s also interested in energy, novel substrates, robots and faster ways to build data centers.
For now, OpenAI’s core consumer product remains ChatGPT, and Altman said he’s focused on making it more flexible and more useful in daily life. He said he already relies on it for everything from work to parenting questions.
He said, however, that there are limits.
“The models have already saturated the chat use case,” Altman said. “They’re not going to get much better. … And maybe they’re going to get worse.”
Electricity demand is surging in Texas, and solar, wind, and battery storage are meeting it.
According to new data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), electricity demand across the Texas grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) hit record highs in the first nine months of 2025. ERCOT, which supplies power to about 90% of the state, saw demand jump 5% year-over-year to 372 terawatt hours (TWh) – a 23% increase since 2021. No other major US grid has grown faster over the past year.
Solar and wind keep ERCOT’s grid steady
The biggest growth story in Texas power generation is solar. Utility-scale solar plants produced 45 TWh from January through September, up 50% from 2024 and nearly four times what they generated in 2021 (11 TWh). Wind power also continued to climb, producing 87 TWh through September – a 4% increase from last year and 36% more than in 2021.
Together, wind and solar supplied 36% of ERCOT’s total electricity over those nine months. Solar, in particular, has transformed Texas’s daytime energy mix. From June to September, ERCOT solar farms generated an average of 24 gigawatts (GW) between noon and 1 pm – double the midday output from 2023. That growth has pushed down natural gas use at midday from 50% of the mix in 2023 to 37% this year.
Battery storage is filling in the gaps
Batteries charge during the day when wind and solar generation are the highest, and they produce electricity when generation from wind and solar slows down. ERCOT began reporting battery output separately in October 2024 in its hourly grid data, and it’s clear that batteries are now helping to smooth out evening peaks. This past summer, batteries supplied an average of 4 GW of power around 8 pm, right as solar production dropped off.
Natural gas is flatlining
Natural gas is still Texas’s dominant power source, but it isn’t growing like it used to. Between January and September, gas-fired plants generated 158 TWh of electricity, compared to 161 TWh in 2023. Gas comprised 43% of ERCOT’s generation mix during the first nine months of 2025, down from 47% in the first nine months of 2023 and 2024.
More demand growth ahead
The EIA expects Texas electricity demand to keep rising faster than any other grid in the US. In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, the EIA projects ERCOT’s demand will climb another 14% in the first nine months of 2026, reaching 425 TWh. That means Texas will need even more solar, wind, and battery storage to keep up with its breakneck growth.
Read more: This $900 million solar farm in Texas is going 100% to data centers
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GM is recalling nearly 23,000 Chevy Equinox EV and Cadillac Optiq models due to a defect where the tire tread could fall off.
GM is recalling more Chevy Equinox EV models
In a letter sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), GM said it has decided to issue a safety recall for certain Chevy Equinox EV and Cadillac Optiq models from model years 2025 to 2026.
This time, it isn’t necessarily GM’s fault. The vehicles may be equipped with 21″ all-season tires that Continental Tire is recalling.
According to Continental, the tires were produced during the week of October 6, 2024, and may have a defect where the tire tread could partially or fully detach. The records show the defect is due to a nonconforming tread base rubber compound.
Owners of affected vehicles may notice unusual tread wear or bulging, vibration while driving, or tire noises. GM is unaware of any incidents related to the defect, but is issuing the recall out of an abundance of caution.
On September 18, 2025, GM inspected the assembly plant and confirmed there were no suspect tires in stock. The 21″ tires come standard on RS trims and are optional on LT1 and LT2 grades.
Although GM is recalling 22,914 Chevy Equinox EVs and Cadillac Optiqs, it estimates that only about 1% of them have the defect.
The recall includes:
- 2026 Cadillac Optiq: 214
- 2026 Chevy Equinox EV: 1,832
- 2025 Cadillac Optiq: 3,468
- 2025 Chevy Equinox EV: 17,400
GM dealers will check all four tires and replace them if needed, free of charge. Dealers were notified on October 16. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed out on December 1, 2025.
You can contact Chevrolet’s customer service number at 1-800-222-1020 or Cadillac’s at 1-800-333-4223. GM’s recall number is N252525030. Owners can also call the NHTSA hotline at 1-888-327-4236 or visit the nhtsa.gov website for more information.
The Chevy Equinox EV is now the third best-selling EV in the US, trailing only the Tesla Model Y and Model 3. Meanwhile, Cadillac’s entry-level Optiq SUV is the fifth-most-popular luxury EV. The recall is minor and only affects a small percentage of models, so it’s not expected to have a major impact.
If you want to test one of them for yourself, we can help you get started. Check out our links below to find available Chevy Equinox EV and Cadillac Optiq models near you.
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In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Tesla’s earnings madness, Rivian layoffs, Ford pausing F-150 Lightning, and more.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
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After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
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