OpenAI Turns ChatGPT Into an App Platform With 1.2 Billion Users

OpenAI used its Dev Day on Tuesday to position ChatGPT — now claimed at 1.2 billion weekly users — as the place where software is discovered, launched and used, a move that takes direct aim at the traditional app store model held by Apple and Google.

The headline announcements included the Dots autonomous agents, new AI models and a set of platform features that, combined, turn the chatbot into a distribution channel in its own right.

ChatGPT will begin suggesting apps inside the flow of conversation when it recognizes that a particular app could help the user complete a task. The user can then connect the app and start using it directly within ChatGPT, without leaving the interface.

The company is also expanding ChatGPT's plugin architecture to support extensions. Developers can build interactive panels where users work with their tools while chatting — effectively turning apps that previously ran on the web or as native desktop and mobile software into something operated inside ChatGPT.

Developers who sign on can build AI-native versions of their apps through ChatGPT the same way they would through the open web or a mobile app store. As more discovery happens through AI chat, it is a distribution channel that is hard to pass up.

Identity and allowances travel with the user

Users get an incentive to use that channel too. "Sign in with ChatGPT" lets them bring their AI allowance with them into third-party apps. OpenAI has 16 launch partners on the effort, including Cognition's Devin, Notion, Vercel, T3, OpenClaw and Dactyl, and plans to add more soon.

In a Dev Day demo, OpenAI showed how its own new meeting app could work inside ChatGPT, displaying upcoming meetings from the user's calendar. The user could have AI take meeting notes and receive a summary of follow-up items when the meeting ended.

In another example, users could work with design-focused apps from Figma and Adobe to revise a current project or use a feature that would otherwise require a standalone app.

Apps can be shared with colleagues through the lightweight websites ChatGPT now produces. From these ChatGPT sites, coworkers sign in with their own credentials and permissions, making the experience personalized to each of them.

A friendlier App Review

OpenAI also improved how developers submit plugins for review — its analogue to Apple's App Review process. Developers can now track their review, see what needs fixing, request a human review, and update a plugin's tools without restarting the whole submission.

The company announced a new enterprise app marketplace as well. More than 30 partners are offering apps through the OpenAI Marketplace at launch, including Adobe, Figma, Sierra, Decagon, HubSpot, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Harvey, Legora, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike and Baseten. Eligible customers can apply part of their OpenAI commitment toward approved partner software, OpenAI said.

Agents pick the tools

The launch of the Dots autonomous agents pushes users toward a model where they no longer decide which app to use. Each Dot runs in its own cloud computer and browser, can use connected apps, and can tap OpenAI's ecosystem of more than 4,000 apps.

Under the old model, a user managing a project — building a website, coordinating a calendar — downloaded separate apps to a computer or phone. Now the user tells an agent what needs doing, and the agent does it. If the work requires another AI model or a particular application, the agent brings that to the user rather than the other way around.

The Dots can also be proactive: jumping in to help with a project or bug, or handling a task the user forgot, always with the user's approval. They perform what OpenAI calls "proactive research" in the background using connected apps in a read-only mode, while users keep control over the actions taken.

This system gives app makers a route to customers outside Apple and Google's stores. A user could subscribe to a service on the app maker's website, then connect that account to ChatGPT or Codex for their agent to use. OpenAI has not said these features would eliminate the need for separate third-party subscriptions or other charges.

Notably, OpenAI announced no billing or revenue-sharing system on Tuesday comparable to the economic layer of traditional app stores. The company focused instead on building the discovery, distribution and interface pieces to counter the app store model, along with an identity layer and a mechanism for sharing a user's existing ChatGPT AI allowance. The missing economics layer is the piece to watch at future developer events.