OpenAI is building an alternative to the traditional app store inside ChatGPT

⚡ The gist in 5 seconds - The point: at Dev Day, OpenAI unveiled features that turn ChatGPT into a place where people and AI agents can discover, launch, and use apps. - Where it's available: directly in ChatGPT, as well as in the new OpenAI Marketplace enterprise marketplace for business partners. - The limitation: OpenAI has not announced a billing or revenue-sharing system comparable to traditional app stores. ### 🔍 What was found At Dev Day on Tuesday, OpenAI showed a set of updates that together aim to undermine the traditional app store model. ChatGPT, with 1.2 billion weekly users, will become a surface for launching software: the chatbot will start suggesting relevant apps right in the conversation when it recognizes they can help the user complete a task. An expansion of the plugin architecture now supports extensions — developers can build interactive panels so users can work with tools without leaving the chat. This effectively turns web and native apps into something operated from within ChatGPT. The company also introduced "Sign in with ChatGPT" — 16 launch partners (Cognition's Devin, Notion, Vercel, T3, OpenClaw, Dactyl) allow users to carry their AI allowance into third-party apps. The plugin review process has been improved: developers can track review status, request a human review, and update tools without a full resubmission. For businesses, the OpenAI Marketplace is now open — more than 30 partners, including Adobe, Figma, Salesforce, HubSpot, ServiceNow, and Harvey. Customers can apply part of their OpenAI commitments toward approved partner software. In parallel, OpenAI introduced autonomous Dots agents: each has its own cloud computer and browser, connects to an ecosystem of over 4,000 apps, and completes tasks on the user's behalf. ### 💡 Why it matters This move gives developers a new distribution channel that doesn't depend on Apple and Google. For example, a user can subscribe to a service on the vendor's website and connect the account to ChatGPT or Codex for their agent. ChatGPT becomes not just a chatbot but an entry point into the world of software, where apps are discovered and used on AI recommendations. This changes the usual practice of downloading and installing programs, especially in the enterprise segment. However, OpenAI has not yet announced an economic layer — billing and revenue sharing — so monetization remains an open question. ### 🧩 Context OpenAI has already experimented with how apps can work inside the familiar chat interface, but the current vision looks more polished. The company is consistently assembling the elements of an alternative to the traditional app store: a discovery interface, a plugin architecture, an identity and allowance mechanism, an enterprise marketplace, and agents that pick the right tools themselves. There were no announcements at Dev Day about a payments or revenue-sharing system, but the stated direction is already clear

🔗 Read on techcrunch.com