OpenAI announced plans to transform its chatbot, ChatGPT, into a central hub for discovering, launching, and using software. With features focused on its chatbot, ChatGPT, the AI company aims to transform its platform into a central hub for discovering, launching, and using software. ChatGPT now has 1.2 billion weekly users, but it hasn’t fully leveraged its capabilities as a discovery tool for AI applications.
The company plans to enhance user interactions by suggesting apps within the flow of conversation when it recognizes that a particular app could help the user complete their task. The functionality is further bolstered by an expanded plugin architecture, which now supports interactive panels that allow users to engage with apps while chatting with the AI.
Developers interested in joining can create AI-native versions of their applications through ChatGPT, similar to how they would on a standard web platform or mobile app store. Users also benefit from the “Sign in with ChatGPT” feature, which lets them carry their AI allowance into third-party applications.
OpenAI has lined up 16 launch partners for this initiative, including Cognition’s Devin, Notion, Vercel, T3, OpenClaw, and Dactyl, and plans to grow this list, further enriching the ecosystem. During its Dev Day event, OpenAI demonstrated how its new meeting app could operate within ChatGPT, enabling users to view upcoming meetings and use AI for note-taking and follow-up summaries.
Additionally, users can work with design-focused applications like Figma and Adobe directly inside ChatGPT, allowing for project revisions without switching to separate software. Users can share collaborative tools with colleagues through lightweight websites generated by ChatGPT.
Furthermore, the company has launched the OpenAI Marketplace, where over 30 partners are currently offering their apps, including Adobe, Figma, HubSpot, Salesforce, and others. Customers can apply a portion of their OpenAI commitment toward these approved partner applications.
As users increasingly rely on agents, OpenAI is ushering in a new era where the choice of which app to use may become less critical. The newly introduced autonomous AI agents, known as Dots, can perform tasks on behalf of users by navigating the web and executing necessary actions using their own cloud infrastructure. Each Dot has its own cloud computer and browser, enabling it to utilize connected applications.
In this model, users simply instruct their AI on what they need, and the agent takes care of it. This marks a significant shift from the traditional approach, where users had to actively search for and download various apps to complete tasks. Dots will be able to connect to its ecosystem of now over 4,000 apps, and their proactive capabilities mean they might offer assistance with ongoing projects or tasks that users may overlook, always with user approval.
While this approach could provide developers with alternative ways to reach customers without depending on Apple or Google’s app stores, OpenAI has not said that these features would eliminate the need for separate third-party subscriptions. The current emphasis remains on building the discovery, distribution, and interface components that could challenge the app store model, without announcing a specific billing or revenue-sharing system like those found in traditional app stores.
