OpenAI will introduce the largest change in ChatGPT’s existence, with the intention of turning the widely-used chatbot into a “superapp” that industry observers say is the most transformative shift in the history of the program. The company will add more advanced coding tools and artificial intelligence agents to ChatGPT to boost revenue in preparation for a potential listing on the stock market, according to a report from The Financial Times published on Sunday. This major pivot comes as part of OpenAI’s broader restructuring, which is focused on the company’s enterprise-level clients, particularly in the face of stiff competition from rival Anthropic. In the Information, over a dozen current and former employees detailed how OpenAI is putting significant resources into features beyond just talking to a bot.
The updates will seem like ChatGPT has started maturing for regular users. You may have found that the tool has always been smart, but you felt like it couldn’t do much more for you than answer questions or write emails. This is about to change. The overhaul makes the OpenAI coding product Codex more prominent and resourced, and has been one of the company’s best features for developers, but it’s been rather obscure. The new features will first see the light of day as updates to ChatGPT’s website and mobile apps over the coming weeks. Anyone that ever dreamed that the chatbot can help them create a small website, automate a repetitive task, or get travel deals in real-time would now have a chance.
To get users to leverage these new features, OpenAI is revamping the ChatGPT interface with updated prompts and features that guide them towards coding features, creating images and partner products like Canva and Booking.com. Instead of a text box, you’ll see smart suggestions as you type into ChatGPT, whether you’re designing a logo, booking a trip, or writing a simple script. That’s what OpenAI is aiming to achieve. The logic goes like this: If you use ChatGPT for actual work, the more likely you are to pay for it. And the reason for that is the numbers. Two million businesses are now generating most of OpenAI’s revenue, and most of its users are already paying customers for Codex. By year’s end, the company says it expects that to climb to 50 percent.
On the business front, it is both a bold and aggressive maneuver. OpenAI has had the head wind in the generative AI business, but other companies, such as Anthropic, are closing the gap with their enterprise tools. OpenAI is attempting to create a walled garden with ChatGPT, allowing users to code, generate images, book travel and do all of their daily productivity without ever leaving the ecosystem. It’s the same game plan that WeChat employed in China and which has been the basis for many western tech companies to try to emulate. But can OpenAI pull it off without losing its casual user base that got ChatGPT popular?
Earlier this year, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT is currently available to over 900 million people each week, and has already reached 50 million user subscribers—out of the people who use ChatGPT. By any measure, these are staggering numbers. However, volume does not always equal dollar profit. With a public listing looming there has never been an increased push to turn free users into paying customers or at least into valuable data generating users. In May, Reuters showed that OpenAI was working on an under-reported IPO listing in the United States in the near future. But, CEO Sam Altman has indicated that timing isn’t the focus and that the company will go public “when it is the right time”. The careful wording indicates that the company is grappling with issues of valuation, market dynamics, and whether or not the superapp approach will gain momentum before it becomes public.
It is a subtle unease here which does not often appear in the newspapers. On the other hand, OpenAI’s engineers and product managers are really excited about building tools to aid a person in creating and solving problems. The business realities of a pre IPO company, however, require growth as well as retention, and are driven by monetisation opportunities. In the FT article, one former employee mentioned the change was needed but that it was “dangerous” to introduce too many features too quickly, as users may become confused by the chatbot and want something that is simple and reliable. The redesign is currently being trialled and tested carefully to ensure that it won’t overwhelm users, with new prompts being rolled out over time rather than at once, another member of current staff said.
How does this affect you the user? For developers and business owners, the improved Codex integration may save you hours of time-consuming work. As a casual user, you may end up learning to code without realising it, thanks to the interface’s ease of use and lack of pressure. But if you’re the type who prefers simplicity, you might be a little irked as the app adds more features you didn’t request. The balancing act between power and simplicity is the heart of any superapp approach. OpenAI appears to be taking a chance that they think the majority of people will accept the extra usefulness when they witness how much it can streamline.
But there is the matter of trust as well. OpenAI has been far more open about its goals than it has been about issues of data privacy, content moderation and environmental impact of training big models has been. The next step is to make ChatGPT a superapp, by integrating it more deeply with third-party tools such as Canva and Booking.com, which will introduce new concerns about data sharing and security. The company has so far given little detail in its answers and Reuters was not yet able to check the accuracy of all of the FT report. OpenAI also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The silence allows one to speculate, and it also gives an indication of how briskly the business is going on the backstage.
