ChatGPT Wants to Let You Use Apps Right Inside the Chat
OpenAI is turning ChatGPT, which the company says now has 1.2 billion weekly users, into a place where you can find and use apps without leaving the conversation. TechCrunch
The suggestions stay in the chat. If ChatGPT sees an app that could help with your task, it will suggest it as you talk. You can connect that app and start using it inside ChatGPT.
For this to work, developers build with an expanded plugin system, a standard way to plug outside tools into ChatGPT. It creates small working windows where you use the tool while still chatting. Your entries, saved work and follow-up questions stay in one place instead of moving to another tab or app.
Your login and paid use go with you. "Sign in with ChatGPT" lets you use your AI allowance in other companies' apps. There are 16 first partners for this sign-in, including Cognition's Devin, Notion, Vercel, T3, OpenClaw, and Dactyl.
The company showed a meeting app inside ChatGPT that lists upcoming meetings from your calendar. Apps can also be shared in simple websites made by ChatGPT, where coworkers log in with their own accounts and permissions. Shared results then follow each person's access, not the sharer's.
Some of this is already underway. Apps in ChatGPT have been in preview for Business, Enterprise and Edu customers. OpenAI Developers can now send in apps for review and release, and users can find them in the ChatGPT app directory. OpenAI Help pages also note a plan to end custom GPTs across ChatGPT plans and help users move to plugins.
The broader context here is how software reaches people. For twenty years, that meant an app store, an install, and permission from the phone or computer system. OpenAI is testing whether a conversation can replace those steps, with the model pulling in the right tool when needed.
Looking at daily use, the practical questions are clear. How are permissions agreed when you connect an app mid-chat. How is information moving between the chat, the working window and the outside company tracked and checked. How do workplace admins control which apps can be suggested, and how do personal logins work in shared sites.
In my view, the business preview is the clue. Home users like what is new, but a shift like this lasts when tech departments can set it up, set permissions and review it. Starting with Business, Enterprise and Edu, using personal logins for sharing, and requiring review plus a directory all point to admin control, not open install.
Worth flagging alongside that is what this makes possible if the basics work. Small work tools like calendar views, task lists, release dashboards and document flows could live where the discussion is already happening, as small panels rather than separate places to visit. For builders, reaching 1.2 billion weekly users could mean making one focused panel and login link, not building and updating apps for every platform.
