OpenAI's Dev Day on Tuesday may have centered on its agentic assistants called Dots and its new AI models, but when viewed as a whole, the company's announcements revealed a much grander ambition: upending the conventional app store paradigm. Collectively, the day's reveals transform ChatGPT into a destination where software can be found, opened, and utilized by both humans and AI agents. On top of that, OpenAI unveiled a feature letting users carry their ChatGPT identity across services, while also enabling them to apply their existing AI credits within third-party applications.

This marks another chapter in OpenAI's ongoing experimentation with how apps might function inside its familiar chatbot interface, though the current approach feels considerably more developed than earlier attempts. To begin with, the company is converting ChatGPT itself into a platform for launching applications. Despite reaching what the company says is 1.2 billion weekly users, the chatbot has yet to fully realize its potential as a discovery engine for finding and using AI-compatible apps. To address this, ChatGPT will start surfacing app recommendations organically during conversations whenever it detects that a specific app could assist the user in completing their task. Users can then connect the app and start using it right inside ChatGPT.

This is further enabled by an expansion of ChatGPT's plugin architecture, which now accommodates extensions. This empowers app developers to create interactive panels where users can engage with their tools while conversing with ChatGPT. Essentially, this converts the apps and services people previously accessed via the web or through native desktop or mobile applications into something operated directly within ChatGPT. Developers who join the system can create AI-native versions of their apps through ChatGPT, just as they would through the open web or a mobile app store. As an increasing amount of discovery shifts to AI chat, it becomes a distribution channel that's difficult to ignore.

Users gain an incentive to adopt that channel as well, since "Sign in with ChatGPT" will allow them to bring their AI allowance along. (OpenAI has 16 launch partners for this initiative, including Cognition's Devin, Notion, Vercel, T3, OpenClaw, and Dactyl, with plans to add more soon, according to the company.)

During a demo at OpenAI's Dev Day event, the company illustrated how its own new meeting app could function inside ChatGPT, displaying upcoming meetings from the user's calendar. In this scenario, the user could simply opt to have AI take meeting notes, then receive a summary of follow-up items once the meeting concluded. In another example, users would engage with design-oriented apps like those from Figma and Adobe to work on revisions of their current project or access a particular feature that would otherwise have demanded a standalone app. The apps can be shared with others, such as work colleagues, through the lightweight websites ChatGPT now generates. From these ChatGPT sites, a user's coworkers could sign in to the app using their own credentials and permissions, making the software experience tailored to each individual.

OpenAI also discussed enhancements to how developers submit plugins for review — OpenAI's equivalent of Apple's App Review process, so to speak. Now, developers will be able to monitor their review status, see what needs fixing, request a human review, and update their plugin's tools without restarting their entire submission from scratch. The company additionally announced a new enterprise app marketplace where partners can promote their services. At launch, more than 30 partners are offering their apps through the OpenAI Marketplace, including Adobe, Figma, Sierra, Decagon, HubSpot, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Harvey, Legora, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Baseten, and others. Eligible customers can apply part of their OpenAI commitment toward approved partner software, OpenAI said.

Beyond transforming ChatGPT into an app discovery tool where users connect with apps directly, OpenAI's embrace of agents is gently guiding users into a new era where they don't have to think as much about which app to use or why, instead relying on their AI agents' recommendations. With the introduction of its autonomous AI agents known as Dots, agents will navigate the web on your behalf, carrying out necessary tasks within their own cloud infrastructure. Each Dot has its own cloud computer and browser, and can also utilize connected apps. Contrast this with the old model, where users wanting to manage some type of project — like building a website or coordinating a meeting calendar — would have to download various apps to their computer or phone to accomplish it.

Now, users will simply tell an AI agent what they want done, and it will handle it for them. In some instances, the agent's work may require access to another AI model or a specific application. But this is something the agent may bring to the user, rather than the reverse — where the user is the one who goes out and seeks the particular tool for the job. As OpenAI explains, the Dots will be able to connect to its ecosystem of now over 4,000 apps. Furthermore, the Dots can be proactive, perhaps stepping in to offer help with a project or bug, or handling a task the user forgot — but all done with the user's approval. The Dots will perform what OpenAI calls "proactive research" in the background using connected apps in a read-only mode, but users would still retain control over the actions they take.

This system could offer app makers another avenue to reach customers outside of Apple and Google's app stores. For example, users could subscribe to a service through the app maker's website, then link that account to ChatGPT or Codex for their agent to use. However, OpenAI has not stated that these features would eliminate the need for separate third-party subscriptions or other charges. Notably, OpenAI didn't hint at any plans on this front today, instead concentrating on how it's building the discovery, distribution, and interface components to challenge the app store model, along with an identity layer and a mechanism for sharing a user's existing ChatGPT AI allowance. It did not announce plans Tuesday for a billing or revenue-sharing system comparable to the economic layer of traditional app stores.