AI
OpenAI turns ChatGPT into a direct rival to Apple and Google's app stores
New features let users discover, launch, and run applications directly within ChatGPT while bringing their own identity and AI credits across platforms.
TechCrunch — AI
OpenAI's latest round of announcements—highlighted by its debut of Dots, autonomous AI agents, and expanded plugin architecture—reveal an ambitious strategy to circumvent the traditional app store ecosystem that Apple and Google control. The company is transforming ChatGPT itself into a full-fledged platform where software can be discovered, deployed, and operated without leaving the chat interface.
ChatGPT becomes the new app store#
With 1.2 billion weekly users, ChatGPT now functions as a discovery layer for applications. The company has enhanced its plugin system with an app-like interface that lets developers build interactive panels users can operate directly inside the chat. When ChatGPT detects an app could assist with a task, it offers contextual suggestions, and users can activate and use that tool without switching windows or installing anything separately.
This shift positions software discovery within conversational flow—when a user asks ChatGPT for help, the platform itself recommends and launches the right tools, much like an app store suggests apps, but more frictionless.
Identity and AI allowance portability#
OpenAI introduced "Sign in with ChatGPT," a credential system letting users bring their ChatGPT identity to third-party applications while carrying their existing AI allowance across partners. Sixteen launch partners—including Notion, Vercel, Cognition's Devin, and others—support the feature already, with more planned.
This feature creates a bridge: users authenticate once, and their subscription or prepaid AI credits work across OpenAI's ecosystem, making it easier to switch between apps without juggling separate accounts or payment methods.
Agents handling the work#
Dots, OpenAI's new autonomous agents, represent a further departure from traditional app consumption. Rather than users hunting down specific tools, they tell an agent what needs doing—build a website, manage meetings, coordinate projects—and the agent executes it using its own cloud infrastructure and browser.
Dots can connect to over 4,000 apps in OpenAI's ecosystem and can operate proactively in read-only mode, offering assistance unprompted but only taking action with user approval. This model inverts the current paradigm: instead of the user seeking out apps, the agent brings the right tools to the user's attention as needed.
