OpenAI has officially transformed ChatGPT from a simple chatbot into a powerful application platform that could redefine how Americans interact with digital services. Announced at DevDay 2025 on Monday, October 6, ChatGPT now allows users to summon third-party apps, such as Spotify, Zillow, Canva, Figma, and Coursera, directly within their conversations—no separate store visits are required.

The End of App Switching

For business professionals, this marks a fundamental shift in workflow efficiency. Rather than juggling multiple tabs and applications, ChatGPT now serves as a conversational gateway to popular services. Need to design a pitch deck? Ask Canva through ChatGPT and watch it transform an outline into polished slides while you refine the content through natural dialogue. Shopping for a home? Zillow's interactive map appears directly in your chat, responding to budget requirements and location preferences without requiring you to open a separate browser window.

"We want ChatGPT to be a great way for people to make progress, to be more productive, more inventive, to learn faster," said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the conference. "This will enable a new generation of apps that are interactive, adaptive, and personalized—that you can chat with."

This innovation directly addresses the failure of OpenAI's previous GPT Store, which required users to navigate to a separate marketplace. The new approach embeds apps seamlessly into conversations, creating what industry observers are calling a potential threat to traditional app stores operated by Apple and Google. With 800 million weekly users of ChatGPT, OpenAI now commands distribution power that rivals that of major tech platforms.

Building the Developer Ecosystem

OpenAI simultaneously launched the Apps SDK—a developer toolkit built on Anthropic's open-source Model Context Protocol—giving third-party developers the infrastructure to create custom integrations. Companies can now reach ChatGPT's massive audience directly within the AI interface, with OpenAI promising monetization details and a formal app submission process later this year.

The initial launch includes partnerships with Booking.com, Expedia, and Coursera, with AllTrails, Khan Academy, Instacart, Peloton, Target, Tripadvisor, and Uber slated for later in 2025. Apps are currently available to logged-in users outside the European Union across free and paid tiers, with EU availability expected in the future.

For American businesses seeking competitive advantage, this development signals a critical inflection point: conversational AI is no longer just a communications tool but an operating system for productivity itself.