Nick Turley, the head of ChatGPT, is leading the effort to transform the AI product into a new type of operating system populated with third-party applications. The plan, which aims to commercialize OpenAI’s research, was detailed during an interview at the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco.

Moving beyond the ‘command-line era’

The core of the strategy is to evolve ChatGPT beyond its current conversational text box, which Turley compares to a “command-line era” of computing. He argues that while powerful, the current product lacks the intuitive visual cues and interactive elements—known as “affordances”—that make modern software easy to use.

“I think we’re gonna look back at ChatGPT in a couple years and feel like the current product is in the command line era. It’s really powerful, but it’s lacking something very important, which is affordances.”

Turley expressed surprise that the product has scaled to 800 million weekly active users with its current form factor, calling it a “weird and hard way to grow a category.”

The vision for a ChatGPT operating system

The plan is to transition ChatGPT into a platform where users can seamlessly access a variety of dedicated applications for specific tasks.

“The evolution we’re trying to make over the next few years is one where ChatGPT itself is more like an operating system where you can come and use applications. If you want to write, there’s an app for that. If you want to code, there’s an app for that.”

This model will rely on partnerships with external companies, as OpenAI does not intend to develop services in every category. Turley specified that OpenAI will not build its own music streaming service or replicate the educational catalogs of platforms like Coursera.

Inspiration from browsers and early hardware

In developing this vision, Turley’s team is drawing inspiration from multiple sources, including the evolution of web browsers, which he notes have effectively become the primary operating system for many users. The team is also studying the history of other transformative technologies, like the Apple PowerBook from the 1990s, which was a versatile tool whose full range of capabilities was not immediately apparent.

This OS concept is part of a broader ecosystem of products that OpenAI is exploring, which reportedly includes a web browser and a family of hardware devices being developed with former Apple designer Jony Ive.

A new approach to building a developer ecosystem

This app-centric strategy follows previous attempts by OpenAI to create an AI application marketplace, such as ChatGPT plugins and the GPT Store, which did not gain significant traction. The new approach aims to be more integrated, making apps part of the core ChatGPT experience rather than siloing them in a separate store.

This integration is also central to OpenAI’s goal of establishing ChatGPT as an e-commerce platform. By including apps from companies like Expedia, DoorDash, and Uber, the company expects to drive transactions directly within the platform.

For developers, this revised strategy offers direct access to ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly users in a contextually relevant way. The goal is to empower developers to build sustainable businesses on the platform, creating a new generation of applications uniquely enabled by AI, similar to how the mobile platform gave rise to services like Uber.

Connecting the consumer product to OpenAI’s mission

Turley also explained that the consumer product is no longer viewed merely as a way to fund the company’s research. Instead, it is seen as the primary vehicle for delivering on OpenAI’s mission to “ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity.” He argued that because artificial general intelligence will likely emerge gradually, the product is the practical means by which those benefits are delivered to the public.

Managing user privacy and data in an app ecosystem

With the introduction of third-party apps, user privacy is a critical consideration. OpenAI’s policy will require developers to take only the “minimum amount of data” necessary for an app to function.

• From day one: Developers will be required to disclose to users what information their app is requesting. Apps that request an unreasonable amount of data will not be approved.
• Future plans: OpenAI plans to introduce more sophisticated, granular user controls modeled after Apple’s privacy settings, which allow users to grant data access on a case-by-case basis (“just this time” or “all the time”).

Turley also mentioned the technical challenge of creating a “partitioned memory” within ChatGPT, which would allow users to segregate different types of conversations and control which parts of their data an app can access.

Handling app competition and the question of paid placement

When asked how ChatGPT would handle multiple apps in the same category, such as DoorDash and Instacart, Turley described a tiered approach. The system will initially show both options, then use personalization based on a user’s past activity or direct preference to prioritize one over the other.

The possibility of companies paying for preferential placement of their apps is a topic under consideration, but OpenAI has no established policy on the matter. The company has chosen to engage in a “discovery” process with developers first. Turley stated that the ultimate criterion for any such system would be the user experience, expressing skepticism about any model that would surface irrelevant apps.