For decades, the most consequential shifts in computing have come not when a tool became smarter, but when it became a home for other tools. At DevDay 2025, OpenAI crossed that threshold with ChatGPT, unveiling an Apps SDK that invites developers to build native applications inside the conversational interface itself — a quiet but profound declaration that the chatbot era is giving way to something more architecturally ambitious. The move places OpenAI on a path walked before by Windows, iOS, and Android: the transformation of a single capable application into an ecosystem upon which others bu
ChatGPT evolves into OS-like platform with native app ecosystem
Something that feels a little bit more like an operating system
Mark
So OpenAI is basically saying ChatGPT should work like your phone's operating system?
Mimi
That's the direction they're pointing. Instead of ChatGPT being one tool you go to for answers, it becomes the hub where you access lots of other tools—Canva, Zillow, Spotify, whatever—all integrated so you can use them through conversation.
Luke
But how deep is that integration really? The demos showed Canva and Zillow, but those are companies with resources. What happens when a smaller developer tries to build something?
Mimi
That's a fair question. The SDK is in preview now, so we don't have real-world data yet on how easy or hard it is for developers outside the initial partner group.
Mark
The article mentions agentic features coming later. What does that actually mean?
Mimi
It means apps could take action on your behalf without you asking. A travel app could book a flight. A calendar app could schedule meetings. Right now you have to explicitly request things.
Luke
That's a significant capability shift. But the article doesn't say how OpenAI will handle permissions or safety around that. That seems like a pretty big gap.
Mimi
You're right. The reporting focuses on what's being announced, not the guardrails that would need to exist for apps to act autonomously on your accounts.
Mark
Is this actually different from what Google or Microsoft are doing with their AI platforms?
Mimi
The framing is different—OpenAI is explicitly calling it an OS-like experience. But the underlying idea of AI as a hub for other services is becoming industry standard.
Luke
And we don't know yet whether users will actually want to access Zillow through ChatGPT instead of just going to Zillow directly. The convenience argument works in theory.
Mimi
That's the bet OpenAI is making—that the friction of switching between apps is real enough that people will prefer to stay in one place and chat their way through tasks.
The Pulse
- OpenAI's Apps SDK shatters the ceiling of what ChatGPT could previously do, replacing constrained text-only chatbots with full-screen, deeply integrated native applications.
- The gap between intention and action narrows dramatically — users summon Canva, Zillow, or Spotify not by navigating away, but by typing a name and staying exactly where they are.
- A founding cohort of household-name partners — Booking.com, Figma, Expedia, Coursera — signals that the platform bet is already being taken seriously by the industry's biggest players.
- Access is deliberately egalitarian: free and paid users alike can activate apps, and the system proactively surfaces relevant tools, lowering the barrier to discovery.
- The horizon is more unsettling and more exciting than the present — agentic features may soon allow apps to act on a user's behalf without waiting to be asked, pushing ChatGPT from assistant to autonomous actor.
For decades, the most consequential shifts in computing have come not when a tool became smarter, but when it became a home for other tools. At DevDay 2025, OpenAI crossed that threshold with ChatGPT, unveiling an Apps SDK that invites developers to build native applications inside the conversational interface itself — a quiet but profound declaration that the chatbot era is giving way to something more architecturally ambitious. The move places OpenAI on a path walked before by Windows, iOS, and Android: the transformation of a single capable application into an ecosystem upon which others build their futures.
OpenAI spent years holding to a simple contract with its users: ask a question, receive an answer. That contract quietly expired at DevDay 2025, where the company introduced the Apps SDK — a toolkit allowing developers to build interactive, full-screen applications that live natively inside ChatGPT. These are not the custom chatbots that came before, which were limited to text exchanges within a conversation window. These run deeper, integrate more completely, and are summoned with nothing more than a typed name.
Nick Turley, who leads the ChatGPT product team, put the ambition plainly: within six months, he said, ChatGPT should feel less like a useful app and more like an operating system — a place where business services and software are accessed, not just queried. Sam Altman echoed this, describing the opportunity to build a new generation of apps that are interactive, adaptive, and genuinely personal.
The DevDay demos gave the vision a face. A Canva integration let a user request a poster and receive four options without ever leaving ChatGPT's interface. A Zillow integration replaced the familiar ritual of clicking through filters with a simple description of a desired home. The friction that normally lives between intention and outcome was largely gone.
The initial partner list — Canva, Figma, Booking.com, Expedia, Coursera, Spotify, and others — reads like a deliberate statement of range. Eleven more partners are expected before year's end, and the SDK is already available in preview. Crucially, the platform is open to all users regardless of subscription tier, with the system itself suggesting relevant apps based on context.
What lies ahead is still taking shape. Turley gestured toward agentic capabilities — apps that could act proactively, booking a flight or generating design variations without waiting for explicit instruction. The arc OpenAI is now tracing is a familiar one in the history of computing: from single application to living ecosystem. The bet is that ChatGPT's greatest strength is not being the best at any one thing, but becoming the place where many things get done.
OpenAI spent years building ChatGPT as a conversational tool—you ask it questions, it answers them back. That basic contract has held steady even as the underlying model grew more capable. But at DevDay 2025, the company signaled a fundamental shift in what ChatGPT is meant to be. It's no longer just a chatbot. It's becoming a platform, something closer to an operating system, with its own ecosystem of native applications.
The centerpiece of this transformation is the Apps SDK, a toolkit that lets developers build interactive applications directly inside ChatGPT's interface. This is not the same as the custom chatbots or GPTs that existed before. Those were constrained to text exchanges within the conversation window. The new apps run deeper. They have full-screen capabilities. They integrate seamlessly with ChatGPT's core experience. When you want to use one, you simply type its name at the start of your message, and ChatGPT routes you to it.
Nick Turley, who leads the ChatGPT product team, was explicit about the direction. Over the next six months, he said, users would see ChatGPT evolve from "an app that is really useful into something that feels a little bit more like an operating system where you can access business services and you can access software." Some of that software will be familiar—existing tools people already use. But the real opportunity, he suggested, lies in new applications built from the ground up to live inside ChatGPT.
The demos at DevDay made this concrete. When Alexi Christakis, a software engineer at OpenAI, showed off the Canva integration, he didn't navigate to Canva's website. He stayed in ChatGPT, typed a request for a poster, and Canva generated four options inline. He then asked Canva to convert those posters into a slide deck—all through ChatGPT's chat interface. The Zillow demo was similarly frictionless: instead of clicking through filters and toggles on Zillow's website, a user could simply describe what kind of house they wanted, and the app would narrow results in real time.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman framed this as an opportunity to build "a new generation of apps that are interactive, adaptive, and personalized that you can chat with." The initial wave of partners reads like a roster of consumer software's biggest names: Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Figma, Expedia, and Spotify. Eleven more partners are expected to join before the end of the year. The Apps SDK itself is available in preview to developers starting immediately. Later in 2025, developers will be able to submit apps for review and listing.
Access is not gated behind a paywall. All users, regardless of whether they pay for ChatGPT Plus or use the free tier, can activate and use these apps. The system will also suggest relevant apps based on what you're talking about, surfacing tools you might not have known existed.
What comes next is still being built. Turley hinted that future versions of these apps could incorporate agentic features—the ability for an app to take action on your behalf without waiting for explicit instruction. A travel app might book a flight. A design tool might generate variations without being asked. The capabilities ChatGPT can offer, he said, will be "greatly expanded" and should feel "meaningfully different" from what exists today.
The shift from chatbot to platform is not unprecedented in tech. It's the arc that defined Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. Each started as a single application and evolved into an ecosystem. OpenAI is now walking that same path, betting that ChatGPT's strength lies not in being the best at any one task, but in being the place where many tasks can be accomplished.
Notable Quotes
What you're going to see over the next six months is an evolution from an app that is really useful into something that feels a little bit more like an operating system where you can access business services and software.— Nick Turley, Head of ChatGPT
Enable a new generation of apps that are interactive, adaptive, and personalized that you can chat with.— Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, on the purpose of the Apps SDK
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