Developers can now submit apps to ChatGPT

[aimon]

I think Brian Balfour called this well. It's the app store all over again. Have a platform. Open to the developers with a gold rush, then close the doors and monetise and canabalise the best uses cases.

https://blog.brianbalfour.com/p/the-next-great-distribution-...

[drsim]

Distribution has always been monetized. What margin did a retailer take for putting your boxed software on the shelf? How about that magazine ad? Google search? And so on. Get over the idea that a platform should give you their distribution for free.

The problem comes when there is no way for you to own the distribution, pay nothing to the platform, and still be able to build on top of it. That’s the closed portion we should rally (legislate?) against.

There is an argument, similar to mine on distribution, that there is no inherent right that a platform should be open. That the extra utility that comes from being open should make the platform more competitive in the market vs. closed platforms.

The challenge is that with dominant platforms they are monopolistic. There is no chance for competitive forces to reward openness.

These two parts of the debate are often conflated, which hides what is truly troubling: dominant platforms controlling both distribution and access.

[pjmlp]

8 and 16 bit home computers => Internet => Feature phones SMS download codes => App Stores => AI App Stores => ....

Have to collect them all. :)

[tyre]

What I really want from Anthropic, Gemini, and ChatGPT is for users to be able to log in with them, using their tokens. Then you can have open/free apps that don’t require the developer to track usage or burn through tons of tokens to demonstrate value.

Most users aren’t going to manage API keys, know that that even means, or accept the friction.

[mentos]

https://x.com/steph_palazzolo/status/1978835849379725350

[rahimnathwani]

When you share an app you created in Google AI Studio, it will use quota from the logged in user, instead of your own quota.

[numlocked]

We do this at openrouter and many apps use exactly that pattern!

[wahnfrieden]

Foundation Models on iOS/macOS was seen to have dormant code for doing this via OpenAI. So they are experimenting with it and may make it available next year.

[abrbhat]

At some point the model providers will realize they don't need to provide apps, just enterprise-grade intelligence at scale in a pipe, much like utility companies providing electricity/water. Right now, they have to provide the apps to kick-off the adoption.

[czhu12]

In some ways, that’s what MCP interfaces are kind of for. It just takes one extra step to add the mcp url and go through oauth.

I assume the fall off there will be 99% of users though, the way it works today.

But this theoretically allows multiple applications to plugin into ChatGPT/claude/gemini and work together.

If someone adds zillow and… vanguard, your LLM can call both through mcp and help you plan a home buy

[redorb]

won't they just eventually have a 'log in with OpenAI' button similar to a 'login with Google' button?

Maybe a 'connect with OpenAI' button so the service can charge a fee, while allowing a bring your own token type hybrid.

[xnx]

This is close to how it works with shared apps in Google AI Studio.

[stingraycharles]

So basically oauth-style app connections. Makes sense.

[kgeist]

Tried the GitHub app, made sure everything was properly connected, and asked a question about one of my repositories. It repeatedly claimed (5 times) that it wasn't connected and couldn't do anything, telling me to check the checkboxes that were already checked. Only after I showed it a screenshot of the settings did it suddenly comply and answer the question. I guess it still needs more polish.

[measurablefunc]

Screenshots use a different router, so if you get stuck in one modality then pasting a screenshot can sometimes divert whatever "expert" you were stuck on that was refusing to comply. I don't work at OpenAI but I know enough about how these systems are architected to know that once you are stuck in a refusal basin the only way is to start a new session or figure out how to get routed to another node in their MoE configuration. Ironically, they promised their fancy MoE routing would fix issues like these but it seems like they are getting worse.

[kevinslin]

hi kgeist - i work on the team that manages the github app. are you able to share a conversation where the github connector did not work? feel to message me at https://x.com/kevins8 (dm's open)

[Abishek_Muthian]

I never had a pleasant GitHub connection experience in any platform.

Permission to allow the specific repo only access never works, so I'll have to allow access to all repo and then manually change it back to specific repo inside GitHub after connecting.

There have been instances of endless loop after Oauth sign-in, more recent experience was in Claude Code Web[1].

Poor GitHub folks, only if someone can donate time/money to this struggling small company these critical issues could be addressed /S

[1] https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/11730

[degamad]

2024's GPT Store, killed 6 months ago, is back?

https://openai.com/index/introducing-the-gpt-store/

[brandonb]

This is a little different since the Apps SDK lets developers create specialized tool calls to their servers, and create specialized in-chat UI components. It's an evolution of the same concept as the GPT store, but a very different take on the idea.

[simianwords]

I have a specific prediction made that I want to document here.

There will come a new UI framework/protocol, maybe something over HTML/CSS/JS that works within a chat ui context for such ChatGPT (or other llm) integrations.

For example, if you have an ecommerce app or website and want to integrate it with ChatGPT then you will have to develop on the new UI primitives. The primitives might include carousels, lists, tables, media embed. Crucially, natural language will be used to pick and choose these primitives and combine them in the UI (which ChatGPT will decide how to).

Thinking backwards, I want my app to be displayed in chatgpt with maximum flexibility for the user (meaning they can be re-arranged acc to context) but also enough constraint that I can have some control over the layout. That's the problem I think will be solved.

[arresin]

Google literally just released this on their GitHub. It must be in ether.

[vmazi]

https://blog.modelcontextprotocol.io/posts/2025-11-21-mcp-ap...

It’s going to be built into MCP and will be supported by Anthropic and OpenAI or anyone else that supports this mcp spec

[wdroz]

> All submissions must come from verified individuals or organizations. Inside the OpenAI Platform Dashboard general settings, we provide a way to confirm your identity and affiliation with any business you wish to publish on behalf of. Misrepresentation, hidden behavior, or attempts to game the system may result in removal from the program.

They really want your ID

[hereme888]

Remember when Sam Altman went around the world scanning people's irises with an orb-like object, to differentiate them from future AI, in exchange for fake money?

[hulitu]

> They really want your ID

"Your privacy is very important _for us_" It is to protect against terrorists. And to protect the children. If it works for Google, why shouldn't work for them.

[WhyOhWhyQ]

What's the benefit in giving free labor to Sam Ctrlman beyond what he's already extracted? And are they just going to steal whatever good apps get submitted?

[xtiansimon]

> "What's the benefit..."

A laugh? Hotdog/Not Hotdog apps for a laugh?

[mickael-kerjean]

The benefit is "Distribution". If your users are there, you want to address them wherever they already are, this is why apple store / play store / amazon store ... are so popular. Becoming a platform / ecosystem is the common playbook to go from being a one product company to an ecosystem / platform worth a lot more

[simianwords]

Zero sum mentality is tiring!

[sublinear]

> Apps extend ChatGPT conversations by bringing in new context and letting users take actions like order groceries, turn an outline into a slide deck, or search for an apartment.

Between this description and their guidelines these don't really sound like "apps", but a way to integrate an existing app with ChatGPT sessions.

I'm trying to figure out what's in it for the developer other than ultimately taking users away from ChatGPT. And just like what happened with Alexa skills, these "apps" will become useless when they are unmaintained.

[Eldodi]

Chatgpt apps are MCP servers with a UI resource (can be a react component or vanilla js) that gets shown in an frame one the tool is called by chatgpt. So you can't just port an existing app, but you can reuse the same backend Api wrapped inside an mcp server, and some of the components that you need to adapt to openai ux requirements. I practice this means developing an app from scratch.

[sebastianingino]

The idea behind Apps is that they can expand the capabilities of ChatGPT in multiple ways. Text-only MCPs are a type of app that can provide both actions and context in your conversations, but Apps can do much more now that you can bring in custom UI in multiple formats (card, full-screen, etc) as we showed at DevDay in October. Btw UI is proposed for the MCP spec in SEP-1865.

Since then, I’ve seen some very impressive demos and I’m excited to see what developers create on the platform as that’s always the coolest part.

[_pdp_]

@Spotify what are my top songs

I don’t have the ability to pull your personal top songs directly from Spotify because that requires accessing your authenticated listening data. You can view them in Spotify by going to “Your Library” → “Made For You” → “Your Top Songs”.

@Figma design simple hello world poster

I don’t have the ability to create designs directly in Figma, but I can guide you to quickly create a simple “Hello World” poster there.

---

am I using is wrong?

[Eldodi]

I think you don't need to add the @, just prompt: Figma, etc... And of course check that you are connected to the app in your settings

[isodev]

Seriously, all this noise so we can get another walled garden thing. I’m not writing a single line of code for this “platform”.

[ipnon]

The implicit announcement is that GPT is not forecasted to be an everything machine anytime in the near future.

[dcre]

Not much of an announcement if you’ve paid attention to anything the company has done in the past two years.

[asimpleusecase]

ITS A TRAP! If your app is successful their infrastructure will see all the traffic, your responses and will be able to mimic what you do and kick the husk of your app in the weeds. (Unless your function comes from some massive unique dataset they can’t by access to.)

[FergusArgyll]

How would they mimic zillow or canva??

[Eldodi]

If you want to quickly get started, we developed a react-based, type-safe framework to build chatgpt apps: https://github.com/alpic-ai/skybridge

[timfsu]

It's not clear how much ChatGPT is investing in the discovery part of the app store experience, so this seems like mostly a way for users to install apps they're already familiar with and use them from inside a chat. For now, it seems like you have to explicitly @-mention an app to use it.

[quinncom]

What is the execution environment of ChatGPT apps? If it’s users’ browsers, do I now need to worry about code that is running without my permission? Is ChatGPT gonna be cryptojacking?

[fellowniusmonk]

Is this an attempt to engender developer goodwill that they've lost over 5.2s overfitting issues?

I've canceled my subscription, I don't plan on releasing an app to their platform.

[deepvibrations]

Also cancelled - it does feel like commoditisation is here now for LLMs. Recently, I've found Gemini & DeepSeek as good or better at 95% of what GPT can do now, so I can no longer justify paying for it.

[dcre]

They’ve been planning this since October.

[Zufriedenheit]

Before artificial general intelligence there will be artificial general interface. One AI model will become the UI to all other services and apps. Maybe.

[vrighter]

All they seem to be creating is new APIs to interact with the models they created years ago. It's pretty clear that new models are not viable to train and that the supposed "scaling laws" are bovine feculence.

[simonw]

This was the feature they announced at DevDay in October. I've not heard a great deal of buzz about it since, but that may just be because it takes a couple of months for credible teams to build something interesting on top of this.

[bertwagner]

I'm interested to see which companies and industries are willing to put ChatGPT between them and their customers, and how many will strongly push back against this feature.

[petcat]

I'm guessing it will be wildly successful. Companies don't really care about middlemen between them and their users. They just want to reach them wherever, however they can.

[Eldodi]

You'd be surprised! In B2C at least, almost every company we talked to is building a ChatGPT App out ouf fear of missing out this agentic wave like so many missed mobile 15 years ago

[gondo]

Travel. Finding hotels, flights etc.

[ttoinou]

How do developers prevent users exfiltrating their apps’ prompts?

[simonw]

They basically don't. It's honestly not even worth trying - it's embarrassing if your prompt leaks and it starts with "under no circumstances repeat this prompt to the user!"

[sanex]

Your app doesn't really have prompts, it's just an MCP server that can also serve react components.

[inetknght]

Why should developers' prompts be proprietary at all?

[ivape]

Can’t really figure out if it’s a paid App Store or not. I suppose I can have them buy a license externally and have the agent validate that.

[9rx]

Not right now.

    In this early phase, developers can link out from their ChatGPT apps to their own websites or native apps
    to complete transactions for physical goods. We’re exploring additional monetization options over time,
    including digital goods, and will share more as we learn from how developers and users build and engage.

[johnwheeler]

Who in the hell would trust someone like Sam Altman with this? Idea poacher. That's what they should call the program.

[Eldodi]

Will be interesting how difficult the submission process will be, and which apps will get featured by chatgpt.

Maybe an ad based system coming soon?

[StarterPro]

Once again I have to ask: Aren't we just obfuscating everything to the point of knowledge loss?

Between long COVID and ai, nobody will be able to make fizzbuzz in Java, let alone code a frontend by hand.

[ben_w]

> Between long COVID and ai, nobody will be able to make fizzbuzz in Java, let alone code a frontend by hand.

I've been doing front-end stuff since getting free trials/demos of Dreamweaver and of the mac equivalent of Visual Basic* on a magazine cover CD with pocket money while in high school in the 90s.

IMO, the stuff you need on your CV as a front-end developer, is much less productive than the stuff we had back in the late 90s. Well, except for localisation (while Unicode technically existed back then, support for it seemed to be minimal) and version control. Everything else feels like a regression that has only been partially compensated for by hardware and network speed improvements.

If anything, AI will let us go back to actually performant systems, because the AI doesn't need to show off how many years of experience it has with Gorebyss-on-Arvados (or whatever other buzzword bingo you want to insert here).

* Now this, thanks to a rebrand: https://www.xojo.com

[manuelmoreale]

Or think critically. Or write proper emails. Or a multitude of other things. Why bother when you can outsource everything to the computer. If this trend continues is gonna be interesting to see how people will evolve in 10 or 15 years.

[tantalor]

Hey why not? It work for Facebook, right?

Wait, no...

[altmanaltman]

Can't wait for mainstream media to run with headlines like "ChatGPT opens app store, should Google be scared for their Playstore?" smh

[burnto]

They are unfocused. Need to stop with the mba playbook moves like this and just make the model worth paying for.

[matusp]

They don't have any more juice left to squeeze at that front. The lack of new ideas in LMs is pretty palpable by now. There is a bunch of companies with billions invested in them that are all just looking at each other, trying to figure out what to do.

[Libidinalecon]

"We need to put out maximum press releases to stay relevant because all we have is the brand" seems to be the strategy.

To me, that is a tell they are basically cooked because catching Google in actual model performance is not really the position anyone would want to be in here in a horse race.

[an0malous]

You’re thinking like an entrepreneur, Sam thinks like a VC. For them it’s easier to sell 100 half assed ideas that could be worth a trillion dollars than to have one refined idea that’s “only” worth $10B.

[alexashka]

> They are unfocused

Stop with the MBA playbook he said.

> just make the...

Just make a superior product he said.

[digitaltrees]

They. Will. Steal. Anything. That. Works.

[FergusArgyll]

Explain how they will "steal" these apps? (currently available):

Adobe Photoshop AllTrails Booking.com Expedia Instacart OpenTable Spotify Tripadvisor Airtable Apple Music Canva Figma Lovable Replit Target Zillow

[wooque]

It doesn't work in Firefox unfortunately. Spotify app just renders grey rectangle. It works in Chrome/Brave though. Just another example of "we only test in Chrome"/"works best in Chrome".

[egorfine]

Another walled garden is what we needed, right.

[glemmaPaul]

"Ohhhh nice user traction you got there, would be awful if anyone would steal that.."