OpenAI turns ChatGPT into an app platform — SkimNews
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- OpenAI announced at Dev Day a strategy to make ChatGPT an app discovery and launch surface, leveraging its 1.2 billion weekly users as the foundation for competing with Apple and Google's app stores
- ChatGPT will begin suggesting apps within the flow of conversation and now supports extensions/panels where users interact with third-party tools directly inside the chat
- OpenAI launched 'Sign in with ChatGPT' with 16 launch partners including Cognition's Devin, Notion, Vercel, T3, OpenClaw, and Dactyl — letting users carry their existing AI allowance into third-party apps
- Dots, OpenAI's new autonomous AI agents, each get their own cloud computer and browser, can connect to over 4,000 apps in OpenAI's ecosystem, and perform proactive background research with user approval
- OpenAI's enterprise app marketplace launched with 30-plus partners including Adobe, Figma, Salesforce, ServiceNow, HubSpot, CrowdStrike, and Palo Alto Networks — eligible customers can apply part of their OpenAI commitment toward approved partner software
- OpenAI revamped its plugin review process to let developers track status, request human review, and update tools without resubmitting from scratch — its answer to Apple's App Review
- Notably, OpenAI did not announce a billing or revenue-sharing system comparable to traditional app stores, leaving that economic layer for another day
Why it matters: OpenAI is positioning ChatGPT as a third major app distribution channel outside Apple and Google's stores — developers gain a new discovery surface for AI-native apps, and users get app access without leaving the chat, but the explicit absence of a billing/revenue-sharing layer means today's launch is the front door to an app store, not the store itself.
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