A user opens ChatGPT and types: "Instacart, reorder my usual groceries and schedule delivery for Saturday morning."
No app switching. No browser tabs. No searching through order history. The Instacart app appears inside the chat, shows the cart, confirms the time slot, and completes the order. The user never leaves the conversation.
This is what ChatGPT apps are. Not chatbots. Not plugins. Functional software that lives inside the chat interface and responds to natural language.
OpenAI spent two years building toward this moment. The GPT Store was the first step. The Apps SDK was the foundation. And now, with the App Directory live and submissions open, ChatGPT has become a platform—not just a product.
For enterprises, this shift matters. A lot. Here's what you need to know.
What Are ChatGPT Apps?
ChatGPT apps are interactive experiences built to run inside ChatGPT conversations. They combine natural language understanding with visual interfaces and real backend connections.
When you use a ChatGPT app, you're not just getting text responses. You might see a map with apartment listings. A playlist you can play. A project timeline you can edit. A checkout flow you can complete.
The key distinction: apps do things. They don't just answer questions about things.
How We Got Here
October 2025: At DevDay, OpenAI announces apps in ChatGPT and releases the Apps SDK. The SDK builds on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for connecting AI to external tools. This is the real unlock—apps can now render interfaces, authenticate users, and take actions.
December 2025: The App Directory goes live inside ChatGPT. Developers can submit apps for review. The first wave of approved apps starts rolling out: Expedia, Spotify, Canva, Instacart, Dropbox, and others.
We're now in the early innings of a platform shift.
How ChatGPT Apps Actually Work
You don't need to be a developer to understand the architecture. Here's the short version:
Three layers make an app:
- Chat logic — How the app responds to what users say. What triggers it, what context it uses, what it says back.
- Interface components — The visual elements: buttons, forms, maps, media players, charts. These render inside the chat.
- Backend connection — The app talks to external services. Your Spotify account. Your company's database. Your Shopify store.
How users interact with apps:
- @mention by name: Type "Spotify, play something for focused work" and the Spotify app activates.
- Browse the directory: Find apps in the App Directory (chatgpt.com/apps or the tools menu).
- Contextual suggestions: ChatGPT can recommend apps based on the conversation. Talking about travel? It might surface Expedia.
When you first use an app, ChatGPT prompts you to connect. You authorize what data the app can access. After that, the app remembers your account and preferences.
The Current Ecosystem
The App Directory is live, and the land grab is just starting.
Travel and booking apps like Expedia and Booking.com let you search and book without leaving the chat. Productivity tools include Canva for turning outlines into decks, Dropbox for summarizing documents and searching files, and Figma for generating diagrams from text. Commerce apps like Instacart and DoorDash handle food and grocery orders through conversation, and Shopify merchants are starting to connect too. Media apps like Spotify and Apple Music offer playlist creation, playback controls, and recommendations.
The directory categories are basic for now: Featured, Lifestyle, Productivity. Expect this to expand.
Monetization is still taking shape. Developers can link out to external payment flows, but native commerce using the Agentic Commerce Protocol is "coming soon." Enterprise apps are sparse, with most early entries targeting consumers. For B2B builders, that's white space waiting to be claimed.
Why Enterprises Should Pay Attention
This isn't a consumer gimmick. There's a real strategic case for building ChatGPT apps.
Distribution at the moment of intent.
ChatGPT has over 800 million users. When someone asks about your category—travel, finance, productivity, whatever—an app can surface right then. Not through ads. Not through search rankings. Through direct relevance to what the user is trying to do.
Reduced friction.
Users don't want to switch apps. They don't want to copy-paste between tabs. An app inside ChatGPT means the action happens where the conversation happens. Fewer steps, higher completion rates.
A new interaction model.
Most software is either visual (click through a UI) or conversational (chat with a bot). ChatGPT apps are both. Users can talk through what they want, then see and interact with the result. That's a different kind of experience—and it's better for complex tasks.
Specific use cases worth considering:
- Customer support: Resolve issues inside the chat. Check order status, initiate returns, update preferences—without routing to a separate portal.
- Internal tools: Employees query systems through natural language. "Show me last quarter's sales by region" renders a chart they can drill into.
- Partner integrations: Connect your service to ChatGPT so users can access it without you building a standalone app.
The risk of waiting:
The App Directory will get crowded. Early apps are getting featured placement. Users are forming habits around the first apps they connect. If you wait until the ecosystem is mature, you'll be competing for attention in a noisy market.
Early movers in mobile app stores had lasting advantages. The same dynamic applies here.
How to Build a ChatGPT App Today
Here's the honest picture of what it takes right now.
The current path:
- Use the Apps SDK (still in beta, but functional).
- Build your app with code—define the interface, the chat logic, the backend connections.
- Set up an MCP server to handle the protocol.
- Test using Developer Mode in ChatGPT.
- Submit through the OpenAI Developer Platform.
- Wait for review and approval.
What you need:
- Engineering resources. This is not a no-code platform. You're writing code.
- MCP expertise. The protocol is documented but new. Expect a learning curve.
- A use case that fits. Apps work best when the action naturally starts in conversation. If your product requires a complex standalone UI, forcing it into chat might not make sense.
- Compliance readiness. OpenAI reviews apps against their guidelines. Data handling, privacy, functionality all gets checked.
The friction points:
The SDK is early. Documentation is improving but incomplete. Community resources are thin.
Review timelines are unclear. OpenAI says "the first set of approved apps will begin rolling out gradually." That's not a schedule.
No visual tooling. You're building interfaces in code. There's no drag-and-drop, no preview outside Developer Mode.
Analytics are limited. Once your app is live, you don't get much insight into how users interact with it inside ChatGPT.
The Gap in the Market
The Apps SDK assumes you have a development team comfortable with new protocols and willing to build from scratch.
Most companies don't fit that profile.
You might have a clear use case. A product that would work well inside ChatGPT. Customers who would use it. But building the MCP infrastructure, designing chat-native interfaces in code, and iterating without real analytics? That's a heavy lift.
What's missing from the current toolchain:
- Visual design tools. The ability to design interfaces, not just code them.
- Managed infrastructure. Someone else handles the MCP layer so you focus on the experience.
- Built-in analytics. See how users interact, where they drop off, what's working.
- Cross-platform deployment. ChatGPT isn't the only AI chat. Claude has apps now too. Building separately for each platform doubles the work.
This is what we're building at Layo.
Layo is a platform for designing, shipping, and measuring apps that live inside AI chat interfaces. A visual studio for building interfaces. A data layer for context, memory, and analytics. Deployment to ChatGPT, Claude, and beyond all from one centralized hub.
If you're an enterprise thinking about ChatGPT apps but don't want to start from zero with the SDK, this is the path.
What's Coming Next
Near-term (2026):
Monetization will go live. OpenAI has mentioned subscriptions, one-time purchases, and the Agentic Commerce Protocol for instant checkout. Developers will finally have revenue options beyond "link out to our website."
The directory will fill up. More apps approved, more categories, more competition for attention. Featured placement will matter more.
Enterprise tiers will deepen. OpenAI is already rolling out apps to Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans. Expect more admin controls, compliance features, and custom deployment options.
Medium-term:
Cross-platform pressure will increase. Anthropic just launched interactive apps in Claude, also built on MCP. Developers will want to build once and deploy everywhere. Platforms will compete on tooling and distribution.
The bigger picture:
AI chat is becoming an operating system. Apps are the software layer. We're in the early App Store moment with limited functionality, rough edges, but the trajectory is clear.
The companies that build for this environment now will have advantages that compound. The ones that wait will be playing catch-up in a more crowded, more competitive market.
Start Building
The tools are early. The ecosystem is young. But the opportunity is real.
If you're evaluating ChatGPT apps for your business, start now. Experiment. Learn what works in a conversational context. Get feedback before the market gets noisy.
And if you want to build without wrangling the SDK yourself, check out Layo. We're helping enterprises design, launch, and grow apps inside ChatGPT, Claude, and the AI interfaces that come next.