OpenAI plans biggest overhaul of ChatGPT into superapp with AI agents

The new features are to be rolled out gradually in the coming weeks, initially as updates for the ChatGPT website and the mobile apps. A fundamental redesign of the user interface is planned. Users are to be directed specifically to programming tools, image generation, and partner services such as Canva and Booking.com, the Financial Times reported. In the long term, OpenAI wants to phase out these prompts and functions and rely on its AI models to automatically detect users' intent.

Codex takes center stage

At the heart of the overhaul is the programming product Codex, which is being upgraded internally because a large share of its users already pay for it. Since the introduction of a desktop application in February, the number of weekly active Codex users has increased sixfold, according to the Financial Times, and now stands at more than five million. Thibault Sottiaux, who was previously responsible for Codex and now heads OpenAI's central products and platforms division, told the newspaper: "This will go beyond the surface."

Sottiaux described the vision to the Financial Times as follows: "We are working toward a system where you have your own personal agent that can support you – in all areas of life, whether private or professional." The application is to be expanded into a "super-app" with programming tools and AI agents. It would be accessible via smartphone and desktop and would support voice interaction – "When you're sitting in the car, you can talk to it," Sottiaux told the Financial Times.

Voices from the company

Alex Embiricos, who is responsible for enterprise customer products at OpenAI, also spoke. He told the Financial Times: "There will probably be a single point of contact that can do everything I need." Upon reaching artificial general intelligence (AGI), there would no longer be a large number of different brands, Embiricos added. A senior OpenAI employee put the shift even more starkly in conversation with the newspaper: "The chat is dead."

The background to the restructuring, according to the Financial Times, is the effort to boost revenue ahead of a potential IPO. The company wants to focus more heavily on lucrative corporate customers and intensify competition with rival Anthropic, the newspaper reported. Currently, two million business customers account for around 40 percent of OpenAI's revenue, according to the paper; by the end of the year, this share is expected to rise to 50 percent.

Business figures and IPO plans

According to company information from the beginning of the year, ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly active users and more than 50 million paying private customers. Reuters reported in May that OpenAI is preparing an IPO in the US. CEO Sam Altman had said the company was not focused on a specific timeline and would only go public when the time was right.

In competition with Anthropic, which is behind the AI model Claude and is planning an IPO in 2026, as well as with Elon Musk's xAI, which has now been integrated into SpaceX and rents computing capacity to Anthropic and Google, OpenAI says it is also playing for the highest stock market valuation in the tech sector. OpenAI itself is reportedly valued at $850 billion. According to information from the Wall Street Journal, the company missed several internal revenue and user targets in recent months. Many earlier investments in AI infrastructure are not yet yielding the hoped-for returns, also because some data centers cannot be fully utilized.

Open questions

It remains unclear how OpenAI will handle its discontinued video product Sora, which was pulled from the market less than a year after launch. The FT report does not yet mention a successor to the video generator. The controversial launch of an erotic chatbot was also halted following internal disputes, according to the report. The coming weeks will show in what order OpenAI actually rolls out the announced innovations and what role Codex and the planned AI agents will play.

The report originates from San Francisco. The "Financial Times" reported today. The US software company OpenAI is thus preparing what it describes as the biggest overhaul of its chatbot ChatGPT since its launch, in order to stay ahead in the competition with Anthropic's Claude.