ChatGPT: The Future Operating System from OpenAI
▼ Summary
– OpenAI announced a new SDK allowing developers to build third-party apps directly into ChatGPT, enabling adaptive and personalized app interactions.
– The initial preview is limited to select developers and major partners like Spotify, Canva, and Zillow for app distribution within chats.
– A demonstration showed apps responding to typed commands, such as creating business graphics with Canva and filtering real estate listings with Zillow.
– OpenAI plans to introduce monetization options for developers, including an agentic commerce protocol for in-chat purchases and instant checkout.
– This follows a previous effort with custom GPTs that generated over 3 million widgets but did not achieve significant success.
OpenAI has introduced a powerful new capability that allows third-party applications to integrate directly within ChatGPT, signaling a major step toward establishing the platform as a versatile, interactive operating system. During the company’s recent developer conference in San Francisco, CEO Sam Altman explained that this innovation will enable a new generation of apps that are adaptive, interactive, and personalized, that you can chat with. A preview version of an Apps software development kit is now available to select developers, enabling them to build apps using open standards, though distribution is initially limited to a small group of major partners.
Altman demonstrated how these integrated apps function by showcasing examples from Spotify, Canva, and Zillow. In one scenario, OpenAI software engineer Alexi Christakis initiated a conversation with the Canva app, instructing it to design promotional posters for a dog-walking service. He then requested a pitch deck to help secure funding for the business. Following that, he asked ChatGPT to recommend a suitable city for expansion, Pittsburgh was the suggestion, and proceeded to open the Zillow app within the chat to search for available homes there. An interactive map appeared, and Christakis refined the results to display only three-bedroom houses with yards.
Altman also shared that OpenAI is developing new monetization options for developers, including an agentic commerce protocol that will support instant checkout directly through ChatGPT. This move is part of a broader strategy to expand the platform’s utility and commercial potential. While this is not the company’s first attempt at integrating apps, custom GPTs were introduced two years ago and over three million were created by the time the GPT Store launched in January 2024, the earlier widgets did not achieve widespread adoption. The latest initiative aims to overcome previous limitations by offering deeper, more seamless interactions between users and third-party services.
(Source: Wired)
