According to Forbes, OpenAI announced on December 17 that it will enable developers to submit apps directly to ChatGPT, creating a de facto app store or “app directory.” This move comes after over a dozen significant upgrades since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022. The potential user base is enormous, with estimates suggesting ChatGPT has over 800 million monthly users worldwide. Experts like Julia McCoy of First Movers and Ahmed Banafa of San Jose State University see this as a pivotal shift from AI as a product to AI as a platform. However, other experts, including cybersecurity CEO Chris Duffy and author Pascal Bornet, express concerns about market chaos, integration challenges, and whether these apps can provide value beyond a simple prompt.
The Platform Play Is The Only Play
Here’s the thing: the race for the best AI model is quickly becoming a commodity game. Everyone’s chasing the same benchmarks. So what’s OpenAI‘s next move? They’re trying to become the place where AI happens, not just the tool that does it. Julia McCoy nailed it by calling this the start of the “platform era” of AI. It’s a classic tech playbook—think Apple’s App Store or Windows itself. You win by creating an ecosystem others depend on. OpenAI is betting that conversational AI will be the new operating system, and this app store is how they lock it down. With 800 million users as a starting point, the scale is almost unimaginable compared to when Apple launched its store.
The Efficiency Promise Vs. Chaos Reality
On paper, it makes perfect sense. Chris Duffy’s point about businesses wanting a “specific tool for a specific job” instead of a “Swiss Army knife” is spot-on. The promise is efficiency: pre-built apps for sales, marketing, coding, whatever. But his skepticism is where the rubber meets the road. I’ve seen this movie before. An app store floods the zone with options, and suddenly the problem isn’t a lack of tools—it’s too many. How do you choose? How do you integrate it? Most companies are still utterly lost on basic AI adoption. An unfiltered marketplace could just hand them a bigger, more confusing menu. Duffy’s warning that it could “accelerate the chaos” feels very real.
The Real Test Isn’t The Launch
Pascal Bornet put his finger on the core issue. The announcement is exciting, but it’s just an experiment. The real story, as he says, is “whether users come back.” Will these apps, or “agents,” actually do something reliably useful that a clever prompt in the base ChatGPT can’t? That’s a high bar. They need to demonstrate autonomy and clear value. Otherwise, this whole directory becomes digital shelfware—a graveyard of neat ideas no one uses. OpenAI’s promise of an orderly directory with clear categories is a start, but curation and quality control are monstrous challenges. Without it, you get noise. And users have zero patience for noise.
A Foundation For Everything?
Stepping back, the ambition here is staggering. Ahmed Banafa talks about this laying the groundwork for a “new kind of digital economy.” This isn’t just about little helper apps. It’s about embedding OpenAI’s tech as the foundational layer for how we work and live online. They want developers to build the specialized solutions that turn ChatGPT from a chatbot into the brainstem of digital life. It’s a power move. But it also raises huge questions. Who governs this economy? What are the rules? Can a single company’s “platform” really be the neutral foundation for everything? It’s a bold bet. And like all big bets, it could redefine the landscape or become a cautionary tale about moving too fast into uncharted territory.
