OpenAI Aims to Improve Developer Experience Around Third-Party ChatGPT Apps

Six months after OpenAI announced that it would let companies launch mini apps within ChatGPT, the experience is getting mixed reviews from participating companies, Bloomberg reported Monday (March 30).

While there are 300 integrations available, they are not easy for users to find, and they have delivered little traffic to partnering companies, according to the report.

In addition, some partners have limited the functionality of their mini apps to retain their customer relationships and payments; some find consumers are hesitant to share credit card details with AI assistants; some have received little data about how their mini apps are performing in terms of user engagement; and some have said that OpenAI’s app-approval process has been slow, per the report.

An OpenAI spokesperson told Bloomberg: “We’re still early in building this out, and we recognize there are areas where the developer experience needs to improve.”

The spokesperson added that the company is working to make the platform “more reliable, more predictable and easier to build on over time.”

OpenAI announced the launch of Apps in ChatGPT, which lets users chat with third-party apps while in conversation with the chatbot, in October. The company also announced an Apps SDK for developers that enables them to build these apps.

Two months later, in December, OpenAI opened its ChatGPT App Directory, which is a marketplace of third-party applications that run directly within the ChatGPT interface. The move allows developers to submit apps for review and publication, and users to discover and use those apps without leaving ChatGPT.

On March 11, OpenAI said it is shifting the focus of its commerce efforts to retailers’ ChatGPT apps after scaling back its plans to sell products directly through ChatGPT checkouts. An OpenAI spokesperson said at the time that this approach will give merchants greater control over the purchasing experience.

The company announced March 24 that it was enhancing the experience of shopping within ChatGPT by including more visual shopping in ChatGPT and by adding more support for product discovery via the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), which will bring additional information to the AI assistant.

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